


i take the parts that i remember (and stitch them back together)

by gracethescribbler, revanchxst (BadWolfGirl01)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: (possibly tcw s7 spoilers? yall should be watching it if you haven't), Ahsoka Tano Needs a Hug, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, CT-7567 | Rex Needs a Hug, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Inquisitor Ahsoka Tano, JESSE LIVES YOU FOOLS I DON'T CARE WHAT DAVE DOES NEXT EPISODE, Manipulative Darth Vader, Post-Order 66, Post-Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Redemption, Sith Ahsoka Tano, Suitless Darth Vader, Torture, abusive dynamics, both in the past and the present, but yeah he's kinda a dick lol, half of which is not on purpose he really does care about Ahsoka, some Fallen Order references, the torture ain't graphic but it's There and it Happens Onscreen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 39,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23959567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracethescribbler/pseuds/gracethescribbler, https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadWolfGirl01/pseuds/revanchxst
Summary: The Inquisitor steps out of the transport to talk to one of the troopers, and in the hazy afternoon sunlight her face is so familiar that Rex is sure he’s seeing things, and he ducks back out of sight and tightens his suddenly-shaky hands on his blasters.It’s got to be the lack of sleep, the long hyperspace flight to get here, some mix of wishful thinking and anxiety, because the Inquisitor looks… looks just like- Ahsoka. But she can’t be here, he knows that, he’s just confused.Rex swallows, and, steeling himself, looks out at the transport again. The Inquisitor looks no different. Sharp blue markings across her montrals and lekku, orange skin, white markings on her forehead and cheekbones. She looks, alarmingly, nearly the same as the last time he saw her, despite her dark clothes and the red-lined cape that the wind is wrapping around her shoulders.[or: Ahsoka's an Inquisitor. Rex wants her back]
Relationships: Ahsoka Tano & Darth Vader, CC-2224 | Cody & CT-7567 | Rex, CT-7567 | Rex/Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 40
Kudos: 284





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inquisitor AU!!! this fic (which is mostly written, but was gonna be a oneshot and is now decidedly not that) was inspired by the art and ideas of the lovely [@buri.creations](https://www.instagram.com/buri.creations/) on Instagram. Ahsoka's and Vader's designs are based off her art (almost exactly, other than we gave Ahsoka a cape) and we've used some of the basic ideas she had discussed in her stories, all with permission.
> 
> please leave us a comment if you like it! should be 4-5 chapters long
> 
> title is from "litany in which certain things are crossed out" by Richard Siken

The air is full of the heavy, shell-shocked silence that follows a devastating battle, smoke still thick and hazy over torn streets and houses newly reduced to rubble. There’s not a single civilian in sight, except for a few dead bodies in the street amongst the dead troopers. They are _vode_ \- Rex will have to double back later and see if they can be identified, and then he’ll add them to his list of names like he’s done for so many others. For now, though, he keeps moving, because this battle is only newly over and that means Vader’s Fist might still be here.

 _Cody_ might still be here.

Rex has spent the last four years since everything went to shit trying to find Cody again. He’s been alone almost that whole time, except for in the beginning, when he and Ahsoka met up occasionally, just to make sure the other was alright. Then they commed. Then two years ago, he lost her.

She’s dead. She’s listed with Secura and Windu and Kenobi, all the other Jedi that the Order had killed. Rex’s list of names, of people he has to remember, is so long now. He misses everyone, even the _vode_ and Jedi he barely knew, even Senator Amidala. People he didn’t know but now wishes weren’t gone.

Trying to find Cody again is supposed to help.

Anakin- Vader has made some of his most elite brothers into a Jedi-hunting taskforce, and Rex knows the force - Vader’s Fist - includes Jesse and Cody and Wolffe at least, surely others of his friends too. Despite all his best efforts, he only ever finds the aftermath of their fights.

This is the closest he’s ever been on Cody’s heels. So he follows the trail of bodies through the little village and, at the edge of the settlement, spots a transport in the fields outside the village. He slows down, draws both his blasters and sets his back against the wall of a house, peering around the corner at the transport.

There are troopers, all _vode,_ loading crates onto the ship, but Rex can’t recognize any of the paint jobs from here. Cody isn’t one of them, which complicates matters - maybe he can take one of those men, at least, but making it to the transport and back without getting shot would be a lucky thing. He judges the distance thoughtfully anyway.

He’s so damn _close._ Cody and Jesse are both probably on that transport, and if he can just think of a way to draw them out, maybe he won’t have to leave empty-handed again.

Another figure appears at the entrance of the transport, in a sleek red and black uniform - an Inquisitor, Rex thinks. Vader has Dark Force users who work for him too, and sometimes Rex has seen what damage they leave behind, and another brother he had freed told him they were called Inquisitors. _Vader’s pet project,_ he’d said.

Rex shakes himself a little.

The Inquisitor steps out of the transport to talk to one of the troopers, and in the hazy afternoon sunlight her face is so familiar that Rex is sure he’s seeing things, and he ducks back out of sight and tightens his suddenly-shaky hands on his blasters.

It’s got to be the lack of sleep, the long hyperspace flight to get here, some mix of wishful thinking and anxiety, because the Inquisitor looks… looks just like- Ahsoka. But she can’t be here, he knows that, he’s just confused.

Rex swallows, and, steeling himself, looks out at the transport again. The Inquisitor looks no different. Sharp blue markings across her montrals and lekku, orange skin, white markings on her forehead and cheekbones. She looks, alarmingly, nearly the same as the last time he saw her, despite her dark clothes and the red-lined cape that the wind is wrapping around her shoulders.

Rex feels as though all he does is blink and then his _vode_ are disappearing inside the transport, the Inquisitor is taking one last look around, and then the heavy transport door slides shut and any chance he would have had to get Cody is gone.

He can’t move for what feels like a long, long time.

He’s not even sure how he gets back to his ship, then, a junky freighter that he stole a couple years ago in the Outer Rim. The village is coming back to life, but in his cobbled-together clothes and mask he only attracts scant, scared attention. Once in his ship, he doesn’t take off, just drops his mask and struggles out of his leather jacket, feeling clumsy.

Years ago he’d been alone and hiding on Coruscant when he found out that Anakin Skywalker wasn’t dead, unlike most of the Jedi - it had been a broadcast on the holonet, their new _Emperor_ talking again about how he’d saved them all from the threat of the Jedi. With the help of his dear friend, he’d said. And he’d introduced the galaxy to _Vader._ Who was just Anakin, standing next to the Emperor with empty yellow eyes, dressed like a Senator, silent and unfamiliar.

Since then, Vader has killed a lot of people. Rex has kept track of him.

He never would have thought his General could betray all of them and the Jedi, before. But regardless of what he’d thought, Anakin is gone.

So now, although he wants to think that he had to have been imagining things, that Ahsoka would never betray them too, he sinks into the pilot seat of his ship and covers his face with his hands. He can’t even find it in himself to be shocked, or angry. He’s just tired.

It makes sense, he supposes, in a twisted-up kind of way. Anakin was Ahsoka’s Master, practically her _ori’vod._ Maybe it was easier for him to convince her to work with him. Rex wouldn’t have thought she’d abandon everything for him (she hadn’t before) but he’s been wrong often lately and he’s sure to be wrong again.

He’s lost Cody again. And apparently Ahsoka too, all at the same time. With a deep breath, he rubs his hands over his hair and reaches for the ship’s controls.

He’s going to have to regroup before he can go after them again, because if he’s going to be dealing with Ahsoka, too, he’s going to need better blasters and a _much_ better ship.

~~~

“First Sister.”

Ahsoka Tano lifts her head and turns partway around, eyes landing on the clone medic crouched on the floor of the large transport she and her troops are in, on their way back to the cruiser she’s currently (partly) in command of. She arches one white marking, staring the blank helmet down - the trooper should know better than to interrupt her musing after a fight. “Yes?”

“It’s the Jedi, sir,” he says. “She’s dying.”

“I told you to stabilize her,” Ahsoka not-quite-snaps, is rewarded with a slight flinch. “My Master _specifically_ told me to bring her in alive, Lord Sidious wants her for something.” She looks down at the slight Mirialan, something like contempt in her eyes - a part of her can’t help remembering the time the two of them had stood side-by-side, just the two of them against Ventress and a failing reactor. Hm, that’s not a helpful memory. She shakes her head a little to dispel it, nudges Luminara Unduli’s shoulder with one booted toe. There’s barely a twitch in response. “And unlike you, I have to take responsibility for my failures.”

“I don’t know if I can, sir,” the medic says, “we’re a ways out from a bacta tank and her injuries are severe-”

 _“CT-2425,”_ Ahsoka says, a hint of something sharp in her voice, and the medic recoils despite the fact she knows the chip wouldn’t let him feel much about the number. “Colt. I don’t want excuses from you, or from any of _you,”_ and she looks around the rest of the troop transport, pointedly, sees most of them shying away from her gaze like it’s a weapon, “either. I told you not to use charges and you did anyway, this is your mess. I expect you to deal with it.”

She turns her back on the medic, pointedly, pushes through the crowd of troopers (who part before her like a sea of white and cracked, unkept paint) to the front of the hold, where Cody and Jesse are leaning against a wall, helmets on, keeping a watchful eye on their squad. “First Sister,” Jesse greets, blandly, shifting more upright into something like attention, although she doesn’t push for it from either of them. She respects them both, trusts them to watch her back (until watching her back becomes unprofitable for Sidious, she expects, and then she can trust that at least the knife in her back - or the blaster bolt, as it were - will be quick and painless).

“Jesse,” she says, nodding at him. “I’m not very happy with your men today.”

“It’s not my fault,” he says, huffs out a breath. “I told them what not to do, they just didn’t listen.”

“We’ll have them dealt with, First Sister,” Cody says, inclines his head respectfully at her. A good man, Cody, even when he’s chipped. (Sometimes she remembers holding Rex while he cried over losing Cody, losing Anakin, losing everyone but her. She never lets herself remember for long. Memories like that are dangerous, here.) “Any specific orders?”

Ahsoka considers for a moment, looks back over her shoulder briefly. “The medic, Colt,” she says. “If he’s able to keep the Jedi alive until we get her into bacta, he shouldn’t be punished.”

“Understood, sir.” Cody salutes her, and Ahsoka smiles, pats his shoulder and moves past him into the cockpit. Through the viewscreen she can see her cruiser approaching, and she can’t help but smile at what that means, although it sends a shiver down her spine, as well.

Soon they’ll be back on Nur, and if the medic does his job, she’ll be approaching Vader with the news of a mission successfully completed. And there’s no better feeling than that in the galaxy.

Colt does manage to keep Unduli alive, and Ahsoka rewards him with a smile, when they come into orbit around Nur and she walks into the medbay to see the Jedi floating unconscious in the bacta tank, her life signs normal. “Good job,” she says before turning and leaving again. Colt will remember that smile, later, when the rest of his squad is disciplined for their inability to follow orders and he’s left exempt, and he’ll want to serve her even more faithfully the next time she works with them.

Vader isn’t often on Nur, at the Fortress Inquisitorious - he comes to see Ahsoka frequently, and whenever they bring a new Inquisitor into the fold he comes to meet them, but he rarely stays for more than a couple days at a time. He’s there when Ahsoka’s shuttle lands in their hangar, though, cape flowing around him, and she can’t help a grin as she crosses over to him. He’ll be proud this time, she _knows_ it.

“Master,” she says, stopping a meter away and bowing.

“Ahsoka,” Vader says, grinning and warm, and she feels herself relaxing, the last lingering touch of fear (that maybe he won’t be satisfied, that she’ll be punished) fading away. “Welcome home, apprentice.”

“Thank you, Master,” she says. “I brought Unduli, like you ordered. She’s in a bacta tank on the cruiser.”

“So I heard.” Vader beckons at her with one hand and turns to walk away, and she steps up to walk at his side, smiling a little at the way the troopers around them scatter, none of them daring to come close to the Sith Lord and his favored apprentice. “You did well for me, Ahsoka.”

She can’t help beaming at his praise. “Thank you,” she says again, and he puts a hand on her arm and for a moment she tenses (expecting pain, always, even when she _knows_ she did a good job and there won’t be any), but he’s just gently squeezing, a praise in and of itself. “Do you have something else for me?”

“I do,” he says, nodding, “but you’ve earned a few days to yourself first, if you like. Or you can go after the relic I want now and take your days after that.”

Ahsoka nods. “I’ll take my days now, I think,” she says. She gets more leniency than the other Inquisitors, mostly because everyone knows she’s Vader’s favorite, the apprentice he’ll take if he succeeds in supplanting Sidious. That doesn’t mean she’s spared his harsh punishments when she fails, but it does mean she has some modicum of freedom, and it means she has the authority to discipline her brothers and sisters below her in the ranks. Even Third Sister.

(Ahsoka had been kind to Barriss, once. She chose not to make that mistake again. She knows what Barriss does to her friends.)

Vader nods, arms behind his back, and Ahsoka paces beside him, imitating his posture, wondering, for a moment, if she should- Well. It doesn’t seem like bringing up the presence she thought she sensed is a good idea - he’s in a good mood right now and if she tells him, that could change in an instant.

Besides. He’s- dead. And whatever Ahsoka thought she sensed… if she tells Vader, he could say she’s making things up, or losing touch, and then maybe she’ll lose what freedom she’s gained. If he confines her to Nur again… she doesn’t think she can handle it. There’s too much pain and fear in the Force, here.

(It’s intentional. She knows that. It forces her to retreat deeper into her anger, into the Dark, to cling to her sanity, to keep her from falling into memories of when that pain and fear was her own. In an odd way, she appreciates it; in the two years she’s been here on Nur, her anger has become her shield, her first response, to save her from pain. It works too well for her to think too much about how antithetical it is to everything she learned in the Jedi Temple.)

“What’re you thinking about, Ahsoka?” Vader asks. (Sometimes, when he’s like this, he’s so close to being _Anakin_ that it hurts. But Ahsoka’s very good about not thinking about that, either.)

She shrugs, deliberately laconic, nearly lazy. “Nothing really, Master.” He looks at her, piercing, and she amends that to, “Nothing important.”

“You know I don’t like you hiding things from me, Ahsoka,” Vader says, velvet covering durasteel, and it’s everything she can do not to flinch. _Kriff this,_ but now she’s gone and ruined his good mood.

Ahsoka tightens her gloved hands around her wrists, behind her back where her cape hides them from him. “I’m sorry, Master,” she says, “I just- I thought I sensed someone, on Balmorra, but I couldn’t have.”

Vader’s stare nearly hurts in its intensity, and the memory of pain is enough to keep her speaking. “I thought I sensed Rex. But-”

“He’s dead, Ahsoka,” Vader says, short and sharp, and Ahsoka looks away, down at her boots. “Are you doubting me?”

“No, Master, never,” she says, shakes her head quickly. “It was a mistake, I know that.”

“Make sure you do.” He’s standing too close to her, now, and Ahsoka grits her teeth and grabs onto her pride and keeps from cringing away. “I expect you to be gone again in three days.”

“Yes, Master,” she nearly whispers.

When she finally manages to find the courage to drag her eyes off the ground, he’s gone and she’s alone in the corridor, with nothing but the Dark for company.

~~~

Rex’s safehouse on Alderaan is a tiny apartment which he only frequents between his trips offworld looking for Cody. His ship is the closest thing he has to a home these days, but after seeing Ahsoka he goes straight back to Alderaan, leaves his ship and sequesters himself in the apartment, hoping to settle himself a little. It isn’t particularly helpful, especially since the apartment is where he keeps all the pieces he has left of his life before the Order. His armor always sits cleaned and stacked in a crate in the corner, always ready for use even though he knows he can’t afford to wear it again. Not when clone troopers are either Imperial enforcers or dead, now. He has small gifts from his brothers packed away similarly next to his bed, things he had been given during the war. A knife from Cody, a carved wooden figurine from a brother named Akaan, a holonovel from Jesse that Rex never managed to get around to reading until he had nothing but time on his hands (it’s not bad). And, with the rest, a pack of sabacc cards from Anakin, and a little bit of sea glass from a planet Ahsoka and Anakin had gone to without the battalion. Ahsoka had come back and distributed little souvenirs, mostly bits of sea glass like this, to most of Torrent.

Rex curls his fingers over the squarish blue glass so it digs into his palm, sitting on his bed. He’s been here for two weeks, without finding a new trace of Cody or Ahsoka, and so he’d reluctantly picked up a bounty. He’s close to running out of resources again and he still doesn’t have a new plan.

He feels stuck. But nothing’s new there.

Although he leaves his apartment mostly the same, when he goes, he leaves with Ahsoka’s sea glass in his pocket. It’s not comforting, exactly, but it is grounding. So is the pressure of his old GAR-issue bracers around his forearms, under his jacket.

His tracking fob takes him to Yavin IV, a rusty spaceport with just enough room for his ship, and he lets the spaceport official, a lazy-looking sort, scan and okay his forged identichip. The ships in the spaceport are all junky, like his, except for one black cruiser that looks like it belongs to some Imperial visitor or an Inner Rim idiot who got stuck out here by mistake.

Rex notes it and moves on into the little town, tracking fob in his palm. The town is quieter than he’d expect, for a warm afternoon, and Rex doesn’t see many people as he passes through the town and follows the tracking signal out of the buildings and into the forest.

For a long time, he doesn’t hear much besides the wind in the trees, the occasional rustle of some small, passing animal. His fob’s signal is growing stronger, and he slows down, glances around the forest. He hasn’t been following a path, but he can see one, several meters away. He can see movement, deeper into the forest, and then abruptly there’s the sound of a blaster shot ringing through the trees and a shout.

Rex draws his blasters and runs toward the fight, hearing sabers igniting and a panicked scattering of blaster shots.

He finds his bounty and Ahsoka at the same time, nearly trips into the fight. Ahsoka’s pressing an attack on the scarred Twi’lek from his bounty puck, twirling a saber almost lazily, and Rex jolts to a stop and fires both his blasters almost automatically at Ahsoka.

Rather to his surprise, they actually connect, only one of the blue stun pulses stopped almost accidentally by her saber. She crumples to the ground, and Rex shoots his bounty, who keels over with his mouth half open like he was trying to say something.

Rex considers both of them for a long moment, feeling as if he has to process what just happened, then reaches into his jacket pocket for his pair of cuffs and snaps them on Ahsoka’s wrists, taking her sabers from limp hands. They’re not the old ones he was so accustomed to, but a pair with sleek, curved hilts that she must have made new. He clips them to his belt, then, after a momentary debate, picks her up and starts back to his ship. He needs to get her secured quickly, then he can worry about his original target.

He doesn’t actually know what he’s going to do then, but he’ll figure it out.

He’s careful on the way back to his ship, trying not to let people see more of them than he has to - bringing back a bounty is one thing. Bringing back an _Inquisitor_ is something else entirely, which results in him having to sneak past the spaceport official and then hightail it to his freighter.

Ordinarily he’d lock his bounties in the hold, which is separated from the cockpit by a reassuringly thick set of doors, and which is divided into his sleeping quarters, a tiny fresher, and a storage space where he keeps his extra supplies. He cuffs Ahsoka to one of the support struts in the wall of the hold, arms behind her back.

It feels surreal, stepping back and looking at her, like some bizarre, awful dream. It really is her, he’s almost as familiar with her face as he is his own, and she hasn’t changed much in the past two years. She almost looks like she could just be sleeping, a little worn and with a few new scars, but otherwise unchanged. Something here is horribly wrong, he knows that much at least. Sighing, he unclips one of her sabers from his belt, briefly, and switches it on.

The blade hums to life with a harsh sound, the same bright red he’d seen only briefly in the forest. He looks at it for a moment, something cold and heavy and nauseous settling in his stomach, then turns it off and leaves Ahsoka in hold.

He’ll get his other prisoner and get off the planet, and then maybe he’ll have some idea of what to do next. For now, he’s hyper aware of her sabers at his hip and the silence of the shipyard behind him as he leaves.

Maybe he’s just made a tremendous mistake. But he has to know for sure if she’s really gone.

~~~

When Ahsoka wakes up, she’s… somewhere else.

A ship, she knows that much, and the residual humidity in the air means she’s probably still on Yavin IV, but she doesn’t recognize anything else. She can still feel the Force, when she extends her senses; the binders aren’t Force-nullifying, then. There’s no one in the ship, and the nearest people are far enough away that even if she shouts she doubts they’ll hear her, and she can’t sense her sabers anywhere.

Kriff. _Shit._ When Vader finds out about this-

No. It’s fine. As soon as the sleemo who _dared_ stun her shows back up, she’ll find her sabers - they’ve probably got them with them, probably think they can sell them for credits. She’ll take her sabers from them and tear them to shreds and get back to looking for the ancient Sith Temple Vader sent her here to find.

The moon seems to be almost suffused with the Dark Side, Ahsoka had noticed that before, when she’d first arrived here, but now she deliberately draws on the Dark, pulls it around her like a cloak and a shield all in one and waits. When this… bounty hunter, or whoever they are, comes back, she’ll be prepared, and she’ll show them the folly of messing with the First Sister.

After all, she didn’t make it to _first_ just because of Vader’s favoritism.

Ahsoka has her eyes closed, is slumped against the binders, when her captor comes back; they’re dragging someone with them, she can tell by the sound, and their footsteps are… strangely familiar. So is their Force-signature. Just like-

Just like she’d sensed on Balmorra.

It _can’t_ be, he’s dead, so- This must be someone else. Just someone who feels a lot like Rex, who’s footsteps sound just like him, who-

Ahsoka takes a deep breath, slowly, lets it out, grabs more onto the Dark around her and makes the conflicting emotions push back behind a wall. If it _is_ Rex, Vader probably lied for a reason. Maybe he knew she’d be _angry._ Angry that Rex left her to the Inquisitors, that he never came for her, that he abandoned her to the pain and the fear and the torture.

If this is Rex, she decides, she’s going to treat him exactly like he deserves to be treated, for daring to stun her and tie her up in his ship like she’s some common criminal when she is an Inquisitor and he a traitor.

The person who may or may not be Rex drags the other person somewhere and comes back through a door by themself, goes over to the ladder she guesses leads to the cockpit and climbs up it, she thinks, judging by the sounds. There’s the sound of another door opening, and then a minute later it closes as they climb back down the ladder. Then there’s the faint sound of something unlatching and the footsteps come closer to her.

Ahsoka waits for a moment, takes the time to sense that her lightsabers are up in the cockpit, and then she opens her eyes and sneers up at the man in front of her.

It’s definitely Rex.

He’s wearing brown and blue, has let his hair grow out and has the start of a beard on his chin, but he looks almost exactly like he did the last time she saw him, years ago. He’s got his arms crossed over his chest and his face is carefully emotionless, though she can tell he’s tense by the way he’s holding himself. He’s being careful. “Hey.”

“I guess you think you’re so clever, capturing an Inquisitor,” Ahsoka snarls at him, though her voice is carefully cold, nearly shaking with the anger in it. (And fear. He could kill her right now and she could do very little to stop him and if Vader finds out she failed-)

“Not really,” he says, gruff, still tense. “Got lucky. Since when are _you_ an Inquisitor?”

“Since when are you alive?” she returns, still sharp. “My Master made me understand, see the galaxy the way he did.” Rex flinches, minutely but enough for her to notice, and she smiles, presses into the crack. “Oh, so you’ve seen him too, haven’t you. Vader. He’s the only one in that place who _cares.”_

Rex grits his teeth, and she can tell she’s getting to him. He must’ve expected something different from her, if his original question’s anything to go by. _Since when are you an Inquisitor?_ Since you left me and they took me and put me into the torture chair, she could tell him. She doesn’t. “What place?”

“The Fortress Inquisitorius, of course.” Ahsoka smiles again, says, “It’s where they keep us when we’re not hunting Jedi or doing Lord Sidious’ dirty work. It’s where they took me, after they captured me.”

“I thought you were dead,” Rex says after a minute, sighing and shifting his weight, and Ahsoka watches him, frowns a little. Is that why he left her there, in that horrid place?

“Obviously,” she tells him, “I’m not.”

There’s a long pause. Ahsoka doesn’t totally understand the look on Rex’s face. “No. I guess not.”

Ahsoka flexes her wrists in the binders, testing them, rolls her shoulders. “I’ll have to tell Vader you’re alive,” she says, shifting her weight on her knees. They’re starting to ache, and her shoulders are too - damn him, she needs to get out of here soon. “I’m sure he’ll be so glad to hear it.”

Rex laughs, a jagged thing. “Oh yeah? You should give him a message for me.”

“What’s the message?” she asks, amused despite the anger - and no, that won’t do, she can’t be _actually_ feeling amusement. It’s just a front, remember that. She has to keep the anger up, or something else will consume her.

Rex puts a hand on his blaster - she doesn’t think he means to threaten her, exactly, but the movement makes the back of her neck prickle, and she shifts, almost unconsciously, muscles taut and ready for anything. “Surprised you have to ask.” He shoves his other hand in his pocket, almost like he’s holding onto something there. She scans that hand for a threat, doesn’t see one, ignores it.

Ahsoka looks at him. “No, I don’t think I’ll give him that message,” she says, hums a little. “I’m the one who’ll have to deal with his bad mood, after he hears that, and I’d really rather not.”

He looks so tired, a part of her, long forgotten, aches to see. “What the hells _happened,_ Ahsoka?” he asks, and that triggers something- _pain._

And pain is not allowed, she can’t feel it, so she snarls at him, bares her teeth, calls on all the rage and power of the Dark around her and snaps out, “You may call me First Sister. You _left me_ there, left me and let them put their needles and their electricity into me-” and as her voice rises a wave of the Force rises with her, lifting Rex off the ground and making him claw at his throat, a little desperately. “You have no _right_ to use my name, not anymore.” She could kill him, right now. She _could._

Something won’t quite let her.

Ahsoka snarls in wordless frustration, throws Rex across the room and lets him lie there on the floor, dazed and barely moving, though she knows he can still see her, and she struggles to take a deep breath - everything is shaking and she doesn’t know if it’s from anger or from that pain she’s trying to hide - and concentrates, feels her sabers nearby. In the cockpit. A wave of the Force opens the door to the cockpit and she levitates her sabers, can see them in her mind’s eye, calls them to her. One she drops down by her knees and the other she hovers around behind her, pictures how the binders must look, cuffing her to a strut of metal, her bracers around her wrists, and she places the saber where she thinks is the right place and ignites it.

There’s a loud, sharp hum and abruptly the cuffs holding her in place fall away, and she’s vaulting to her feet _immediately,_ pulling both sabers to her hands, the harsh sound of them soothing something in her. She’s not chained, she’s free, she’s _fine,_ and out of the corner of her eye she sees Rex starting to sit up, slowly, grabbing for his blaster.

He can’t do that.

One finger flicks off the hilt of her saber and his blaster skids across the floor, and then Ahsoka, the First Sister, apprentice to Darth Vader, runs.

She runs, and she doesn’t look back.

~~~

Rex pushes himself off the floor of the hold, his hand going to his throat automatically. There won’t be any bruising, he knows that much, but there’s pain nonetheless. He scoops his blaster off the floor, sets it back in its holster, rubs his hands over his face.

He should just leave, turn in his bounty, take some pain meds on the way and keep moving. It’d be the smart thing to do when he’s already kriffed up so badly today.

Instead he leaves his ship to go into town. The sleek, expensive cruiser is gone, so he supposes it was Ahsoka’s ship, and two of the spaceport workers are dead on the duracrete. When the spaceport official starts talking about arresting him, calling security, Rex shoots him. It’s not like anybody’s gonna be surprised he was here at this point.

Turns out that even though the town is tiny, it’s got three cantinas for him to choose from, so he picks the one with the most speeders out front and sits at the very end of the bar with a hand on his blaster. A couple of credit chips gets him a glass of whiskey and only a slightly suspicious look.

This isn’t a very good idea.

But last time he lost someone he still had people to talk to. Since Ahsoka’s not in a talking mood, he can be forgiven for indulging a couple bad ideas. The whiskey burns like hells on the way down but it might help, so here he is. Not like anybody’s gonna scold him.

He wants to cry, a little bit.

Things had been getting better, for a while. Or at least, as much better as they can anymore. Two years since he decided Ahsoka was dead and it’s stopped hurting quite so much, he’s been able to sleep most nights, bounty hunting is working for him and he can rely on at least knowing where Cody is half the time, even if he hasn’t worked out how to get him back yet.

Now he feels like he can’t really breathe right. And not just because _Ahsoka fekking Tano_ decided to try to crush his windpipe.

 _You left me,_ she said.

The hells he did. They’ve left him, and now for all he knows he’s gonna have kriffing Vader on his tail for a while. Better not to go back to Alderaan. Organa has enough trouble without Rex bringing him extra attention.

He’s on his second glass of whiskey when someone sits down next to him, a shorter, unassuming Miralan man in a coat that’s too big for him. Rex bristles at the intrusion on his personal space, but doesn’t otherwise care until the man says, “I saw you with the Inquisitor.”

Rex has his blaster out and pressed into his ribs through the large coat in an instant, below the bar counter. “Kriff off,” he says. “That’s none of your business.”

“Take it easy.” The man barely looks at him, although he does flinch. “Not a fan of the Empire, I take it.”

Rex glances at him, narrowing his eyes. “Who is?” he says, snorting, although he doesn’t holster his blaster. “Get to the point or you’re leaving here in pieces, _friend.”_

“The _point_ is, seems like you’d be a good asset against the Imperials.” The man’s voice is low, and he sticks a hand out in an amusing show of bravado. “Ingir Alee.”

Rex raises his eyebrows and takes a sip of his whiskey without lowering his blaster, still. “Are you serious? Is this your recruitment speech?” The audacity of the man. Thinking he can just waltz up to an armed stranger in a bar who he saw committing treason and ask him if he wants a job.

Alee doesn’t seem phased. “Pretty much, yeah. There’s a group of us here on Yavin IV, we’re doing what we can to get in the Empire’s way around here. Fake identichips, kriffing with their system, helping contraband through, things like that. We’re working on doing more.”

Rex sighs and shakes his head, holsters his blaster again and runs his thumb around the rim of his glass. “I’m not interested in joining your small-time resistance movement, I’ve got my own problems. Good luck to you, but I don’t need to get myself stuck in whatever…” he gestures, vaguely, around the cantina, “whatever bullshit is happening here. Sorry.”

Alee is eyeing him thoughtfully. “It’s not just here on Yavin IV,” he says, “there are other people out there too.”

“Yeah.” Rex has heard all the talk about resisting the Empire before. Last time it was directly from one of Organa’s friends who’s helped keep him informed. It’s a great cause, and a great idea, and he’s keeping as far away from it as possible. He doesn’t need to get dragged into another fight, he needs to get his brothers back from the Empire and mind his own damn business for once. Which he’s never been good at, but he’s gonna try. “Look, I’m sure you all have it covered. I wish you the best. And I’d love for you to leave me alone.” He sighs, pushes back from the bar and knocks back the rest of his drink, which makes his eyes water and his throat burn.

Alee is still looking at him, so Rex sighs and glances around, then gives him a tiny, determined smile. “How about this, you keep me updated on what the Imperials are doing here, I let you know if I learn anything that’d be interesting to you or, I don’t know, these friends you’ve got.”

After a moment, Alee nods, then scribbles a comm frequency out for him, and Rex pockets it. The man seems gutsy, at least, and earnest, so he should be fine, and good for information. Just because Rex doesn’t want to join a rebellion doesn’t mean he isn’t interested in helping them where he can. But right now he leaves the bar as fast as he can, gets back to his ship to leave.

He’ll find somewhere to lay low, make some kind of plan. He doesn’t know. For now anything other than here is good enough.

Ahsoka wasn’t supposed to be one of the people who let him down. He knows he shouldn’t be hung up on that, it doesn’t really seem to matter anymore what he expects of people, but she’d never… He’d always trusted her, she’d been there right after the order and then she had helped him get started tracking his brothers, had been looking for Force-sensitive kids and surviving Jedi to help.

 _I have a lead on Lothal,_ she’d told him, over comm, before she left. She’d said she didn’t think there was anything to worry about.

 _Be careful,_ he’d said. _I don’t want to have to come get your ass out of trouble again. Besides, I thought we agreed one of these times we’d actually meet up somewhere nice._

She never answered him. He’d held out hope for _months_ that she was alive, he’d been combing the HoloNet for signs of her, had studied the barebones military channels he had access to. There’d been nothing until her name showed up on the list of murdered Jedi.

He wonders a little if he could have saved her at all if he’d been able to find her. How long after he lost contact with her did she become _this?_ He’s not even sure who he has to blame, and between wanting to blame himself, her, and Vader, these days Vader is the easiest.

But it’s clear that whatever he may have foolishly hoped, she isn’t the same, she doesn’t care about him anymore, and he can’t act as if she does.

He’ll just have to focus on getting Cody back. That’s the best he can do, anymore.

~~~

Ahsoka gets the relic.

She gets it, and then she leaves it in the small cargo bay of her ship and leaves the Yavin system as fast as she can push the sublights. She imagines she can still sense Rex in the back of her mind, a phantom shadow, haunting her.

She’ll tell Vader he’s dead. She’ll say she choked him, that she understands why Vader didn’t tell her Rex was still alive, that she killed him to prove her loyalty because he was a traitor. And he tried to kidnap her.

Maybe she shouldn’t tell Vader that last part.

_What happened to you?_

Ahsoka shakes her head, stares out at the blue of hyperspace until it burns itself onto her retinas. She doesn’t want to think about that right now, please, today has been bad enough.

_The boy was crying._

No. No, not now, she can’t-

_He was crying, and alone, and she knew he could sense the presence nearby - the same one she could sense, looming and heavy, weighing down like mountains on her mind, Dark and choking. Coming for him, this child, too young to understand what was happening to him but old enough to know he’s in danger, though that was probably aided by his Force-sensitivity._

_Ahsoka was supposed to save him. To get him out of there, and then maybe she could meet up with Rex again, and they could talk about what to do now, how to better fight the Empire. There’ve been rumors, after all, of resistance groups starting to form, surely one of them would welcome an ex-Jedi and an ex-soldier, and then finally Ahsoka could begin to fight back against the regime and the man that’d taken her Master from her._

_But she’s been sloppy. She’s made a mistake. And now she and this child are going to pay for it._

_When Anakin- When_ Vader _comes around the corner, Ahsoka’s standing in front of the boy, the blue sabers Anakin had helped make extended. Vader stops, surprised, even though she knows he had to know she was here. There’s no way he wouldn’t have sensed her._

_“Ahsoka,” he says._

_“I know why you want the Force-sensitive children,” she says, although she only knows part of it. “You want to take them and train them. I can’t let you do that.”_

_“Ahsoka,” Vader sighs, and she feels the Force drawing up around him. “Oh, Ahsoka. You can’t stop me.”_

_The boy behind her makes a soft noise, like a wounded animal, and Ahsoka glances over her shoulder at him. “Run,” she says, and looks back to An- to Vader, who still hasn’t moved. “Maybe I can’t stop you,” she says, lifting her chin, “but I can still try.”_

_“Yes, I expect you will.” Vader’s hand goes to his belt and he pulls out his lightsaber, but when he ignites it, the blade is a deep, dark crimson, matching the accents on his shirt and the underside of his cape. “Don’t worry, this’ll be your first lesson.”_

_She’s good._

_He’s lightyears better._

_And so it ends how it was always going to end, from the beginning: her on her knees with a red-hot slash on her shoulder, Vader’s red, red saber (red like it’s absorbed all the blood of the Jedi he’s killed with it) hovering at her throat as he gently, almost lovingly secures the binders around her wrists. “It’s a shame the boy got away,” he muses as he nudges her to her feet, “but I think it’s for the best. After all, if I’d gotten him, I wouldn’t have gotten you.”_

_“I’ll never help you,” Ahsoka spits._

_“Yes you will, my apprentice,” Vader says. He’s smiling at her, nearly indulgent, like he knows something she doesn’t. “Just give it some time, you’ll understand why it has to be this way.”_

_She’s taken to a planet. To a fortress with mirrored black walls and floors, where the very air is heavy with screams and pain and fear, to a circular room with nothing but an interrogation chair in the center. She fights them the whole way, with everything she has, but it’s not enough; they force her into the chair and lock her arms and legs down, and then the electrified panels come down and all she can do is scream._

_The first time she tries to escape, the troopers have just opened her cell door to take her to another round in the interrogation room, and her muscles are still shaking but she’s on her feet and shoving them away with the Force and_ running, _hard, except she doesn’t know where she’s going and she’s too focused on getting away from the troopers behind her and the room and the chair. She’s still looking over her shoulder when she rounds a corner and nearly runs through a lightsaber blocking her path; when she manages to skid to a stop and look up, the face is familiar, Mirialan, quiet, eyes gone gold instead of the remembered blue._

_“Where are you going, Ahsoka?” Barriss asks. “Don’t take it so hard, we’ve all been through this.”_

_This time, when they shove her into the chair, Barriss is there too, watching._

_Ahsoka begins to hate._

_After her fourth escape attempt, Vader comes to see her again. She’s bleeding from her nose and a knife wound on her upper arm and she’s fairly sure her right shoulder is dislocated, and she’s huddling in the back of her cell, still on the defensive. They’d forced her back into the chair even after she’d hurt herself fighting them, and she can barely move from all the pain._

_“Ahsoka,” Vader chides, gently, stepping into the cell._

_She spits at him. It lands on his boot, blood and spit mixed together, marring the polished shine, and he looks down at her. “What’d you do that for? I’m here to help you.”_

_“Get away from me,” Ahsoka says, presses herself against the back wall of the cell as Vader comes closer, crouches down in front of her. “Don’t touch me!”_

_“Relax,” he says, a little of the good humor leaving his face. “I’m going to fix your shoulder.”_

_She doesn’t even have time to prepare before he’s grabbing her arm and popping her shoulder back into place, and she yelps, can’t help it, tries to pull away from him. “Stop it, leave me alone.”_

_“Ahsoka,” Vader says, “I’ll only ever hurt you if you disobey me.”_

_There’s no way that could be true, he’s the whole reason she’s here, he’s the one who wanted to kidnap a five year old child, he’s- He’s her old Master, the only difference now the color of his eyes and the outfits he wears. “I don’t believe you,” she says, but her voice shakes. He’s_ not Anakin _but she can’t help wanting comfort from him anyway._

_“You’ll learn.” He smiles at her, stands up again, brushing dust from his knees. “Don’t try to escape again, Ahsoka. You’re only making things worse for yourself.”_

_And then he leaves. And she’s alone again._

The proximity alarm beeps, jerking her out of the memories, and Ahsoka shakes her head, hard, tightens her hands around the steering yoke. All of that happened years ago, why can’t it just stay in the back of her mind where it needs to be? She knows what happened. Her Master hadn’t lied to her, that day: he only ever hurts her when she’s disobedient. When she fails him. And the only time she has to go back into the interrogation room is when they have a new Inquisitor, because Ahsoka is First.

It’s Rex’s fault she’s stuck thinking of all this, now. She can’t let him get to her, she _won’t._

“Rex was still alive,” she tells Vader, when she brings him the relic. “I saw him. He tried to capture me.”

Vader goes very still, turns to look at her.

“I killed him,” she says, doesn’t stutter on the lie. She should’ve. If she sees him again, she’ll correct that.

Vader looks… _surprised._ “Good,” he says, and the anger she’d begun to sense turns into warmth. _“Good,_ Ahsoka.”

“You’re not angry with me?” she ventures, finally letting herself relax. 

“No, of course not,” he says, “I’m _proud_ of you, Ahsoka. You’ve taken another step on the road to becoming an amazing Sith.”

Ahsoka smiles. There will be no punishment today, at least.

(And she’ll kill Rex soon enough. And then she won’t have to worry about what’ll happen if her Master finds out she lied to him.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter two! thank you all for your wonderful comments on the last chapter, we've really enjoyed reading them. we're glad you all are enjoying reading this as much as we're enjoying writing it! we'd love to hear what you think of this chapter as well

Vanqor is dark most of the time, even outside of the caverns. Rex doesn’t find that he minds, though - the system has a lot of stars, and the planet itself is made up of crystalline rock that sparkles so much that the lack of light isn’t as bad as it could be. The last time he’d been here was so early in the Clone Wars, and he doesn’t remember much, except that the battalion had teased General Skywalker for weeks about how they had to rescue him and General Kenobi from a cave-in  _ and  _ a bunch of angry gundarks. Ahsoka had been particularly proud of herself for saving both of them, although both Generals seemed determined to prove that they had been fine, and hadn’t needed help. Idiots, all of them, but it had been entertaining.

The incident did at least teach Rex that if he wanted to stay on Vanqor, he needed to keep his ship away from the caverns and stay inside.

Most of the time, anyway.

With nothing else to do, he’s taken to venturing further afield from his freighter, into some of the ravines and caves that pit the surface of the planet. As long as he’s careful, he can avoid getting caught in the planet’s frequent dust storms, and the caves are fascinating as long as he stays out of the way of the gundarks. (Easier said than done, but he always carries an extra blaster and a couple flash grenades, which seems to work well enough. The gundarks have sensitive eyes, he’s found.)

He’s also found that the other creatures that live in the caves are edible, even if the meat’s fekking  _ weird  _ \- it’s better than running out of rations, so his explorations into the caves are half for his own amusement, half in hopes of catching dinner. Today, though, he’s navigating a new branch of tunnels out of curiosity, which has so far led along an underground river. He’s noticed lots of odd eyeless fish in the water, which he's wary of. It’s not as if he has a way to go fishing, but he stops on the bank of the river anyway and eyes the pools thoughtfully. The water’s an odd milky white color, which is concerning, and he decides it’ll be best to stick to the drinking water he has on his ship.

There’s the slightest scuff of feet on stone, but Rex only gets his blaster halfway out of its holster.

A boot connects with his chin so hard his head snaps back and he hits the ground hard, left elbow taking most of the impact as he tries to catch himself. There’s the sound of sabers igniting, bright red filling his vision, and before he can get back up there’s heavy pressure digging into his chest and two sabers almost close enough to his throat to burn.

Past the blinding X of the sabers, all he can see are Ahsoka’s eyes, narrowed and bright, sickly yellow. Rex lets out a tired breath and closes his eyes.

Everything’s silent for a moment, except for the hum of her lightsabers, but then, abruptly Ahsoka swears, the sabers go silent, and the weight on his chest disappears. He doesn’t move, for a second, just taking a couple deep breaths, and hears her take a few steps away.

When he pushes himself gingerly to sit up, she has her back to him. He considers her, for a moment, then risks getting to his feet.

“Why can’t I kill you,” she says, flatly.

He’s too shaken to come up with a clever response, so he just says what he’s thinking. “I don’t know, you tell me.”

“I told him you were dead,” she says, which surprises him, “so I  _ have  _ to kill you. I’ve been tracking you for weeks. And I  _ can’t do it.” _

Rex rubs at his neck and crosses his arms, although part of him itches to reach for his blasters. For now at least, he thinks, he’s not in too much danger. He doesn’t expect that to last, but he doesn’t really know. “I’m flattered, I guess,” he says, wearily, “although it looks like I need to get better at getting off the grid.”

Ahsoka shakes her head, shoulders tightening, and clenches her hands into fists. A short distance away, a stalactite explodes into shards of stone. Rex swallows and shifts his weight a bit.

“Cody helped me find you,” she says, which hits like a punch in the gut. “He’s more loyal to me than Vader, right now at least; he knows he’ll get in just as much trouble if he tells Vader.”

Rex snorts, shakes his head and looks away. He wants to lash out, somehow, tell her she’s got no right to talk to him about Cody, but all that comes out is, “You didn’t happen to bring him, did you?”

“No.” Another column of rock shatters into pieces as Ahsoka shakes her head again. “You make me remember.”

“The hells is that supposed to mean?”

Ahsoka looks down, then she turns around, to face him, which he almost doesn’t want. It’s too hard to look at her, almost, between the yellow eyes and the anger. “Lothal,” she says, which he doesn’t understand for a moment. “I- fought him, and I lost, and he took me to Nur, and they made me this.” She gestures at herself, with one hand. “You have no idea what it was like.”

Rex shifts his weight again, rubs one hand over his upper arm even though the cold he feels isn’t physical. “I see,” he says, at a loss to come up with anything else. No wonder he hadn’t heard from her again.

Ahsoka turns away, another nearby stalactite taking the brunt of her anger again. Rex  _ almost  _ finds it funny. “Cody and Jesse are the only people I can trust. You want to take them away from me.”

“Damn right I do,” Rex snarls. “You can only trust them because they’ve got no say in it. So yeah, I’m gonna get them back from you and all your shit new friends.”

If Rex had thought about it much, he probably would have questioned the wisdom of provoking Ahsoka much. She whips around to look at him yet again, stepping towards him, fists clenched, snarling. There’s a tremor in the ground that Rex doesn’t think is natural. “I can trust them because I know they won’t hurt me unless I stop being  _ useful _ or Sidious gets threatened.” She takes another step towards him and Rex barks a harsh laugh. “All my mistakes leave scars now,  _ Rex, _ but you can’t understand that.” She stops. “And I have no friends. Every single Inquisitor would betray the others in a  _ heartbeat  _ to make it further up the ladder.”

Rex laughs again, shakes his head and looks away, a sick taste in his mouth. “All the more reason to get my brothers out of there. Since you’re clearly not interested in what happens to them anymore, I’ll get them myself. Don’t tell me what I do and don’t  _ understand  _ about this situation, you betrayed  _ me,  _ not the other way around.” He crosses his arms and lifts his chin, wants to walk away but doesn’t think she’s likely to let him.

Ahsoka bares her teeth at him in another snarl, eyes burning. “You were  _ dead _ and I was being tortured until I couldn’t even scream anymore and the only person who gave a  _ damn  _ was my Master.” Rex flinches, despite himself. “So don’t talk about betrayal, if you’d cared about me you  _ would’ve found me.” _ She starts to stride away, cloak swirling around her, and Rex isn’t Force sensitive but he can still practically feel the air vibrating with energy, ripples spreading across the river beside him.

“I  _ looked for you,”  _ he snaps, at her back. “For  _ months,  _ until all the reports said you were dead. I didn’t fekking  _ leave you.” _

Before she can reply, there’s a pronounced rumbling sound, from ahead of them along the path the way Rex came, and the ground under his feet suddenly feels a lot less steady. Then, with a groan and a horrible crack, the ceiling above Ahsoka’s head gives way, and Rex lunges forward and grabs her arm, yanking her back towards him.

~~~

Ahsoka doesn’t even have time to flinch when Rex grabs her arm; she’s barely able to register the ceiling falling in and throw out one hand to try and catch the rocks with the Force before they hit her.

She’s mostly out of the way by the time the first rock falls, but one still lands painfully on her leg, and she stumbles, swearing and falling back into Rex. Not good, not good. Rex grabs her, though, gently, arms around her, and for a minute she forgets to be afraid.

Only for a minute, though, and then she’s jerking away, limping on her injured ankle - it’s hot and burning in her boot, is probably already swelling - and stumbling into the wall, leaning against that. The shock of the pain and the collapse clears away some of her anger, and she takes a heaving breath, shakes her head a little. “Kriffing  _ damn it,” _ she snaps, slides down the wall to sit leaning against it. “I’m not even supposed to be here.”

Rex takes a minute to look at the settling pile of rocks, then looks back over at her. “Yeah, well, looks like we’re kinda stuck. If we get eaten by gundarks I’m blaming you.”

Right. There’s gundarks in these caves. But that’s not what she’s worried about, and she can’t help a trace of that fear finding its way into her voice. If Vader finds out… “You don’t understand,” she says, shaking her head. “I can’t call for help.  _ I’m not supposed to be here.” _

Vader hates lying. She’d thought this would be a quick in-and-out thing, kill Rex and leave before anyone’s the wiser, but… “And if I’m here too long, Vader might track my ship, and then-”

“Look,” Rex says, “let’s focus on this first,” and he gestures around the cave. “See what we can do.”

Ahsoka takes a deep, shaky breath. “Okay,” she says slowly. Experimentally, she flexes her ankle, winces when that sends pain stabbing up her leg - it’s manageable, she can walk and fight on it if she needs to, she’s been through worse, but she’d rather not if she doesn’t have to. She carefully pushes herself back to her feet and crosses the cavern back to the caved-in wall, limping only a little. “I don’t know if I can shift it all.”

There’s a long pause, then: “You have got to be kidding me.”

She grits her teeth, welcomes the return of the anger to block out her fear. If he’s going to be  _ that _ way, then… She closes her eyes, reaches out into the Force, and methodically explodes the top layer of rocks. “You wouldn’t be able to move it either, so shut up unless you have something useful to say,” she snaps, clenches a fist and breaks a few more rocks into pieces. She’ll break as many as she can, and then she’ll shift more, and then maybe she’ll be able to use her lightsabers to melt more away - assuming the gundarks don’t show up, of course. 

She can’t be stuck here. If Vader finds out she’s all the way out here instead of investigating the Malachor system… She won’t be able to lie that away. And he’ll  _ know _ she’s lying, and he’ll force her to tell the truth, and then he’ll know that Rex is alive and she can’t kill him. Ahsoka clenches her first again, tight, and three more rocks burst, which is both satisfying and exhausting. She can’t do this all day.

It takes some thirty minutes crushing rocks before she has to give it up as a futile task, for now - she’s too tired to make much headway now. She’ll rest, for a little while, and then- Well. Then she’ll figure  _ something _ out.

So she limps carefully back over to the wall and drops down to the floor, stares at her hands and tries not to look over at the man she can practically  _ feel _ watching her. “Fine,” she says, heavy and exhausted. “You want Cody. You can have him.”

There’s silence for long enough Ahsoka thinks maybe he didn’t hear her, then Rex says, slow, “What do you mean?”

She’d loved him, once. Maybe she still does, somewhere underneath all the anger and the fear and the pain. “Just what I said. Next time I have command of them, I’ll bring him and you can have him.” Vader will punish her for losing Cody. She can’t help wondering if Rex understands that, realizes how much it’s going to cost her to do this, what she’s risking.

She almost doesn’t know why she’s doing this, but- he saved her life. From the cave-in. She almost killed him,  _ could’ve, _ and he repaid that by saving her from something she caused by her own lack of control.

There’s another pause, and Ahsoka’s about ready to rescind her offer when Rex says, “Why? What’s the catch?”

“No catch,” she says, dull and tired. “I almost killed you and you saved my life. Call it… for old time’s sake.” 

She tries never to think about it. But sitting here in a cave with Rex, with nothing else to do, all Ahsoka can think about is how much she misses how  _ easy _ it was, before the pain. Before she had to always be on guard, before the fear that keeps her always alone. She can’t even remember the last time she slept without a hand on her weapon, or someone smiled because they were genuinely relieved to see her, or she could touch someone without being afraid of pain. 

Even her Master, the only person who really cares, the only person who’s really  _ kind _ to her, even he still hurts her. When she’s disobedient. When she fails. He does it to protect her from Sidious and from the other Inquisitors, she knows, but-

She misses feeling  _ safe. _

“Ahsoka…” She should snap at him for using her name, not her title, but she doesn’t have the energy to, anymore. “You know I really want him back, but you can’t exactly blame me for not trusting you. I gotta have some kind of guarantee it’s not all a big trick.” He’s quiet, at least, not accusing. The only good thing about that.

She snorts, a little, though she’s the opposite of amused. “There’s nothing I can give you, just my word.” She looks at him, for a minute, then says, “My lightsabers could probably melt through the rock, enough for you to be able to shift them and get out.” There’s a minute where she stares at her hands, unsure, then carefully she picks up one lightsaber and tosses it at Rex. “I won’t stop you from using it, on whatever you choose to use it on.”

There. The only kind of word she can give him.  _ If you use it on me I won’t stop you. _ It goes against everything she’s been taught, but this- this is Rex. Who left her. (Or maybe she left him? She doesn’t know anymore.)

And she’s so  _ tired. _

~~~

Rex catches Ahsoka’s saber mostly automatically, the metal feeling cool against his palm. He shouldn’t be so eager to believe her. He should know better by now, not to get his hopes up, even if the idea of actually getting to help Cody and get him out of the Empire after  _ years  _ of trying is so tantalizing.

But he can’t help himself, really. Even though he  _ should  _ know better, he can’t convince himself that Ahsoka’s lying to him. She’s too quiet, and weary, and the weight of her saber hilt in his palm clinches it for him. Even though he knows that if she really wanted to, him having one of her sabers wouldn’t stop her from hurting him. But he’s tired, and so is she, and he’s been wrong a lot lately about things but he really doesn’t believe she’s lying.

“You can hurt me,” Ahsoka says, after a moment, which sounds all kinds of wrong and makes him feel briefly nauseous. “I dropped my guard, it’s what I deserve. Vader would.”

Rex turns the saber hilt over in his palm and gets up from where he’s been sitting, crosses over to her and holds the weapon out, pretending he doesn’t see her flinch a little. “I don’t think this thing is really my style,” he says, lightly. “I… appreciate the gesture, though.”

Ahsoka looks at him for a moment, without moving, then takes the saber back from him. “You forgot how to use it already?” she asks, and he huffs a little and sits down on the ground across from her, scrubbing a hand over his hair.

“No. I just never got good at it and I’m real out of practice.” She used to give him lessons on how to use a saber, just in case he ever had reason to, but he’d never quite picked up the trick of it, although he supposes he could if he tried. But he’d always figured that wasn’t his place. “Anyway, I’m not a fan of red.”

Ahsoka shrugs a bit. “No, I guess not,” she says. “Blue is more your style.”

“What gave it away?” Rex taps his forearm where he’s wearing his bracers, amused despite himself.

Ahsoka almost smiles, just an upward twitch of the lips with no warmth behind it. She’s thinking about something else, clearly, turning her saber hilt in her hands. Rex goes quiet, too, hides his hands in his pockets.

“I tried, you know,” she says. “To leave.”

Rex looks at her. “I know,” he says. He knows her well enough for that. She might be different now, might have let him down, but he knows she’d never have given up without a fight.

Funny how that doesn’t really make it feel better.

“I tried, a lot,” she repeats. “And then after one of the times, he came to me, and he said- ‘I’ll only ever hurt you if you disobey me.’ He told me to stop trying to escape. And I was so-” She shakes her head a bit. “He’s the only person who’s been kind to me, since they took me. And he never hurts me if I don’t deserve it.”

It’s completely irrational that the first thing Rex wants to do is try to hug Ahsoka, just as irrational that he wants to tell her she doesn’t deserve to be hurt. But everything is complicated, and he can’t just comfort her anymore, so he just digs his hands further into his pockets and swallows. “I don’t think ‘kind’ is the word I’d use to describe him anymore.”

Ahsoka shrugs. “He’s the only one who cares. Maybe it’s not- kindness, I don’t know, but he  _ does  _ care about me.” Rex narrowly keeps from snorting and saying  _ some way he’s got of showing it. _ “It’s why he’s taught me and- done everything, he’s protecting me from Sidious. It’s the only reason I’m not dead.”

Rex shakes his head. “Yeah, I’m sure he’s only got all your best interests in mind,” he says, trying (unsuccessfully) not to be too sarcastic. He doesn’t want to fight more. But Ahsoka can’t tell him that Vader’s tortured her and then tell him he  _ cares. _

If Rex ever sees Vader again, he has a host of good reasons to try his level best to beat the shit out of him. Of course, it’s likely if he ever gets that close, he’ll be dead soon after, but the thought is grimly satisfying anyway.

Ahsoka’s quiet for a moment, then, abruptly, she glances over and tells him a string of numbers - a comm frequency, he realizes. “That’s how you’ll get in touch with me,” she tells him, “so I can hand Cody off to you.”

Rex frowns, just a little, looking at her. She’s harder to read than she used to be. Maybe just because he doesn’t know what he’s looking for. “Don’t they monitor your comms?”

“Not that one. Vader doesn’t know I have it.”

Rex doesn’t believe that for one second. He thinks  _ Ahsoka  _ believes it, but there’s no way the frequency is actually secret from Vader. “I’m not sure I like that,” he says, mildly, programming the frequency into his wristcomm. “Comms get intercepted all the time.”

“Well, that’s my only option.” She gives him a bit of a look. “It’s encrypted, I’m not  _ stupid.” _

“Didn’t say you were.” Rex sighs and leans back on his hands, looking up at the wall of rock in their way. “Gotta say, it might be easier to try to follow the cave and find a different way out than keep wearing ourselves out here trying to get this out of the way. If you’d have picked a different day to attack me we’d probably be somewhere I was familiar with, but your timing is shitty.” He gives her a smile, one that doesn’t feel real. But it seems important to him to keep trying to treat this like everything’s normal.

Ahsoka hesitates, then gestures at one foot. “Well, I really shouldn’t walk on this. I mean, I  _ can, _ but it’s swelling up real bad.”

“Damn, I’m impressed,” Rex says, without thinking. “Some common sense.” Then, quickly, feeling stupid, rushes to say, “I’m guessing me helping is still out of the question.”

“If I take my boot off, I won’t be able to get it back on,” she answers, matter of factly.

Rex nods and sighs. “So moving the wall it is, I guess.” For the first time since they’ve been here, he hears a distant, echoing cry in the caves somewhere and sighs. “That or we get eaten by gundarks. Either way we probably don’t have to worry about Vader till later.”

Although he suspects they’re not going to be able to get Ahsoka back as quickly as she wants. Which he finds he doesn’t like. He doesn’t want her to get in trouble.

~~~

All told, it takes less time than Ahsoka was worried it would to melt through the rocks and get out of the cave. She and Rex don’t talk, really, while they work, but it’s still- There’s less tension there, now, than there had been. And Ahsoka finds it’s easier to not be so angry, right now.

She’ll get Cody for Rex, and she’ll take the inevitable punishment, and then maybe- Well, then Rex will be gone again, off the grid. And she’ll figure out what she’s supposed to do from there.

Once they’ve finally melted through the rocks enough for Ahsoka to break and move some out of the way so they can climb through, Ahsoka tells Rex she’ll contact him once she’s got another mission with Cody and starts back towards her ship. She needs to get to Malachor.

“Ahsoka?” Rex says, from behind and a little to one side of her, and she turns a little, enough to look back over her shoulder at him.

“What?” she asks, brushing dirt and dust from her shoulders and legs.

There’s a moment where all Rex does is look at her, then he says, quiet, “Be careful.”

Ahsoka nods at him, in acknowledgement, unsure what to say - he says  _ be careful _ like- he really wants her to be, like he still cares about what happens to her. Maybe he does.

(If he does, she probably doesn’t deserve it.)

She gets back in her ship and sets the autopilot to take her to the Malachor system, goes to the small medbay and carefully works off her boot, lets the meddroid look at her ankle. It’ll heal, and she can always tell her Master she injured it while on Malachor, hunting for his relics. As long as she’s careful, he won’t doubt her.

Why should he? He doesn’t have reason to.

But when she gets back to Nur, everything starts to feel a little impossible. It’s hard to see the other Inquisitors around her - it seems like all of them will know she was in the same room as a traitor and didn’t kill him,  _ conspired _ with him, agreed to  _ help _ him.

Offered him access to one of their most valuable commanders.

Vader’s busy with some cell of resistance; there are hardly any, he’s told her, but from time to time rebels appear and have to be shut down. He’d sent her to deal with them, once. She hadn’t totally been able to. (There’d been  _ children _ in the village they were using as a base. She’d killed the adults that fought, but the children- How was she supposed to kill them?)

She’s grateful he’s gone. It gives her time to get her thoughts back in order.

How had she ever thought this was a good idea? She should’ve called the gundarks and let them have Rex, then found her own way to safety - if she couldn’t kill him herself, she could’ve… dealt with it that way. It’s what her Master would’ve told her to do, what any of the Inquisitors- hells, any of their  _ troops _ would’ve told her to do, and yet here she is.

She promised him Cody.

It’s too late to change that, now. So she’ll have to- make the best of this situation.

Vader sends her out on another mission after a couple of weeks, once her ankle is fully healed, and she’s only been gone from Nur from a couple of days when there’s a ping on her secret comm, the secure one she’s almost never used. She pings back, a signal for  _ safe to talk,  _ waits - if it’s Rex, he’ll understand.

_ “Hey. Ahsoka?” _ It’s definitely Rex’s voice, though he sounds almost unsure, nearly defensive.

“Rex,” she says. “Did you need something? I’m not ready to make the handoff yet.”

There’s a crackle of breath across the comm, then,  _ “I just wanted to make sure this frequency worked. See if we can use it without getting ourselves shot. Everything… okay?” _

“As okay as it can be, I guess,” Ahsoka says, shrugs even though he can’t see her. “I’m off Nur right now. If you plan to keep comming, make sure you ping me first. If I’m at the fortress I’ll ping you to say it’s not safe.”

_ “Makes sense.” _

He doesn’t say anything else, though Ahsoka waits for a minute, and she sighs and admits, “I should’ve let you die. But I didn’t. So- now we work through this, whatever this is, and then… go from there.”

_ “Right, okay.” _ Rex sounds tense again.  _ “I’m not in as tight a spot as you, but a warning ping would be good if you comm me, too.” _

Ahsoka rubs at her face. “Okay,” she says. She probably isn’t going to be comming him herself, but it’s a nice thought. “Vader went after this resistance cell that popped up, a few days ago. It surprises me a little how small these things are, I would’ve expected more rebellion against the Empire than I’ve seen. I guess people don’t really care that much.”

There’s a pause, for a minute.  _ “Yeah. Guess everyone’s just busy trying to live.” _ He’s sarcastic, and Ahsoka forces herself not to flinch. She’s an  _ Inquisitor. _ She’s not going to react to that.

Especially since half the reason she’s where she is right now is because she was just trying to live, too.

“I guess so.” She presses a few buttons on her ship’s control panel, sighs. “I never killed indiscriminately, you know. But I guess yellow eyes and red sabers turn a person evil, right?” She should be angrier, about that. She wants to hate him. It’d be so much  _ easier _ if she could just hate him.

~~~

Rex rubs his face, grateful the comm is audio only - he’d half expected to get no answer, or only a harsh answer, and in either case to end up getting tracked down and shot within the next couple days. He doesn’t know what to do with this conversation now that he’s got it.

Just because she’s talking to him and being civil doesn’t mean she’s going to come back, and he can’t afford to be careless.

“No,” he says, in answer to her question, although he knows it was mostly rhetorical. “Everything’s always gotta be more complicated than that. But I’ve noticed those are good indicators.” He winces a little, shakes his head. “I don’t know. Been good to know not  _ everything’s _ changed, I guess, if you’ve got some standards.”

Nothing he says seems to come out right. He doesn’t want to push her so much, but if he’s not careful he’s going to get himself killed trying to help her, and everyone else for that matter, so it’s easier to be upset.

_ “None of this was my choice,”  _ Ahsoka says, sharply.

Rex  _ wants  _ to argue, but it’s mostly reflex, so he just breathes out and rubs his forehead. “That’s not what I meant. I know that. I just-” He sighs again. He doesn’t even know how to feel anymore. “Never mind.”

_ “Okay.” _

Rex presses the heels of his hands against his eyelids and sighs, sharply, unsure what else to say but hating the idea of ending the comm. (It’s not quite true that he doesn’t know what to say, there are all sorts of things he’s trying so hard  _ not  _ to say that it feels hard to talk.)

He almost hates how easily he’s gone back to missing her too much. He knows she probably doesn’t miss him and when (if) he’s gotten Cody back, she’s not going to want anything else to do with him.

“Turns out I’m a pretty good bounty hunter,” he says, when the silence is stretching too long.

_ “Oh, yeah,”  _ she says, and he wishes he didn’t feel so relieved she didn’t just hang up,  _ “that makes sense.” _

“Yeah, you’d hope all my training was  _ some  _ practical use,” he jokes, tired, trying to focus. “All kinds of people keep trying to recruit me, though, which is inconvenient. Last month it was the Hutts.”

Ahsoka is quiet for a second, then says,  _ “You should go after them, then.” _

Rex can’t help but laugh a little, surprised into real amusement. “You think I should just ‘go after’ the  _ Hutts _ by myself, huh?” he asks, shaking his head.

_ “Well, I’d help you, if you asked, the Hutts need to be taught a lesson anyway.” _ Ahsoka’s very matter-of-fact.

Rex just shakes his head. “I think I’m done getting involved in other people’s power plays these days, but I’ll keep that in mind. Right now I’m just trying to focus on my  _ vode.” _ He huffs a bit. “You could help me some more with  _ that.” _ He’s not totally serious, at least… Well. He wishes she’d leave and take as many of his brothers with her as possible and then he wouldn’t worry so much about everyone.

_ “I’m risking a lot to get you Cody, you know,”  _ she says.  _ “I’m going to get punished for losing him.” _

“Maybe you oughta come too,” Rex retorts, without thinking, then winces. Kriff, he should just keep his mouth shut.

Ahsoka doesn’t reply right away, and Rex leans his forehead against his hand. He doesn’t really want to hear her answer, he knows she probably doesn’t want to leave.

_ “I can’t, Rex,”  _ she says, then, very quiet, sounds almost  _ small, “I’d get in so much trouble.” _

Rex swallows and straightens a little, hope and disappointment both choking him all at once. He should leave it alone. He really, really should.

“Only if you got caught,” he says. It’s supposed to be a joke. It doesn’t sound like one, though.

_ “He’d find me, I- We still have our bond.” _

Rex can’t believe she’s still talking to him. He shifts, considering. “That’s not something that can be broken?” he asks, although he knows the answer to his own question and suspects she won’t like the implications.

There’s another moment of quiet.  _ “I don’t- Rex, you can’t ask me that,”  _ she says.  _ “That’s- he’d hurt me.” _

Rex taps his fingers against his knee, nodding. She hasn’t said she doesn’t  _ want  _ to. She’s said she’s scared. There’s a pretty significant difference, he thinks. But he doesn’t say what he’s thinking. He takes a deep breath, nods to himself again. “Right,” he says. “Sorry. But there might still- be things that could be done about that. If somebody wanted. Just-” He tries to slow down. “I’m sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. Gotta see if I survive using this frequency first, right?”

_ “I told you, it’s secret,”  _ Ahsoka says.  _ “You aren’t going to get attacked.” _

Rex huffs a bit. “I hope you’re right. I’d be the first to say I don’t think Vader’s all-powerful but I have trouble believing he won’t find out about this comm either, Ahsoka, to be completely honest.” He  _ does  _ believe Ahsoka wouldn’t sell him out, though. Not at this point.

_ “I’m taking precautions.” _

“Well, good.” Rex nods. “I hope this works. I really do.”

_ “Yeah.” _

Rex swallows and looks at his wristcomm. “Well… I hope I hear from you pretty soon, Ahsoka. Stay safe?”

_ “Okay,”  _ Ahsoka says, after a moment.

Rex nods to himself, sighs. “Okay.” He hesitates, then ends the comm and runs his hands over his hair, getting restlessly to his feet.

He needs a plan. And, he thinks, he might need some help.

Lucky thing he has a contact with Bail Organa.

~~~

Rex comms a couple more times over the next few weeks, mostly to make sure the comm is still secure and Ahsoka’s still planning to go with the plan. It’s almost two months after Vanqor that Vader assigns her with Cody’s detachment again, to deal with a Jedi-incited rebellion on Ryloth. He tells her it’s a test, that if she can kill the Jedi and quell the rebellion, she’ll have earned her place as his Apprentice, not just as an Inquisitor. “If you do this for me, Ahsoka,” he says, “We’ll be ready to challenge Sidious.”

She’s going to. She’ll have to lose Cody in the process, but then she’ll kill the Jedi, stop the rebels, and help her Master kill Sidious - that’s at least something like what she used to fight for, killing the Sith Master oppressing the galaxy. Rex will like that, right? He wants her to leave but she  _ can’t, _ he’ll hurt her and find her and take her back. He told her not to run away again. So she can’t.

“I will, Master,” she promises. “We’ll take Sidious down together.”

“Good.” Vader squeezes her shoulder once before she goes, and she waits until he can’t see her to let out the breath she’s been holding.

He doesn’t suspect anything. It’ll be fine.

She comms Rex while on the light cruiser, sequesters herself in a small training room and tells the troops that anyone who disturbs her while they’re in hyperspace will be killed on the spot. They know her temper. They don’t question her.

She pings him, quickly, doesn’t wait for him to respond. “Rex. Are you there? We don’t have much time.”

There’s a minute where she’s afraid Rex isn’t near his comm, or didn’t hear, or just can’t answer. Then he speaks and she can’t quite ignore the relief.  _ “Yeah, here. What happened?” _

“I’m on my way to Ryloth with Cody and his squad,” she says. “I know it’s short notice, but I just received the mission and didn’t have space to get away until now. Can you make it?”

_ “Yeah, I can,” _ he says, which is good, Ahsoka didn’t want to have to try and do this again,  _ “just give me a couple hours. I’m gonna bring a brother, okay? Just for the support, Cody’s not gonna be okay.” _ She can hear the faint sounds of someone moving around, cloth rustling, thinks he must be getting ready.

“Okay,” she says. “Bring a meddroid too, I won’t be able to get one. It’ll be hard enough to sneak away with Cody.”

_ “On it.” _ There’s a pause, more background noise, and then he adds,  _ “Gods, okay, send me the coordinates. See you soon, Ahsoka.” _

She doesn’t answer, just sends coordinates to a different area of the city than most of her forces will be clustered in. She can get Cody to come with her by saying she senses something this way and wants him at her back, he’ll believe that. It’s not the first time she’s asked for his help facing a Jedi.

She can do this. And then, as soon as Cody’s out, she can stop lying to her Master, she can go back to doing what she knows how to do, and they can take down Sidious together.

Ahsoka’s notified a few hours later by a harried-looking naval officer that they’ve reached Ryloth, and would she please proceed to the main bay so they can land and drop her and her men off?

She agrees, but then she looks the pale, thin man up and down and says, “I said I wasn’t to be disturbed. And you forgot my title.” She’s forgotten, some, who and what she is, and so when she chokes the man it’s as much a reminder for herself as it is to him.

She doesn’t kill him. Just leaves him on the floor in the corridor, hacking and coughing and grabbing at his throat with both hands. He’s lucky she’s in such an off mood, and now he knows that, and he’ll never forget to call her  _ First Sister _ again.

The light cruiser lands outside a city, small compared to the planet’s capital (at least in her memory, though she’d been fourteen and a child and also in an A-wing) but bigger than some of the villages she’s seen, and at first she leads her men to the source of their mission: an area where the local stormtrooper garrison is struggling to hold back riots and protests. She gives Jesse the orders to open fire indiscriminately - civilians and rebels alike will die, until they all give up.

Then she turns to Cody.

“Cody, I want you on me, I sense something. I think the Jedi might be trying to escape.”

“That doesn’t sound much like a Jedi,” Cody says, shaking his head. “They don’t usually leave civs behind. But I’ll follow your lead.”

Ahsoka leads him out of the press of bodies and blasterfire and grenades, through winding alleys towards the abandoned shop on the edge of the quietest part of town Rex had sent her direct coordinates to, creeping along the edges of shadows with her saber hilts in her hands like she expects a Jedi behind every corner.

She has her secure comm within easy reach, and as she and Cody creep past the storefront Rex set up in, she pings his comm, once - then freezes, as though she’s heard something, lifts one hand. “Hang on,” she says, and then Rex steps around the corner of the building and stuns Cody in the back before he has time to do more than turn around.

“Hey,” Rex sighs. “Come on, let’s get him inside.”

Ahsoka nods, grabs Cody’s feet and Rex gets his shoulders, but as they’re getting him in through the door, the Force thrums with  _ something, _ heavy and dark, and she pauses, tilts her head and extends her senses out. “Something’s wrong,” she whispers, and then above them there’s a loud  _ thunk _ of something huge exiting hyperspace and the Force is filled with a cold, Dark presence.

Vader.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy revenge of the fifth >:)

Rex stops, his arm around Cody’s shoulders - Ahsoka’s head is tilted, eyes wide and slightly unfocused like they are when she’s listening to the Force. She looks  _ afraid, _ and Rex’s stomach goes hollow. “Something’s wrong,” she says.

“What is it?” he asks, although he almost already knows, and tightens his hold on Cody. Behind him, in the shop where they’ve set up, Sterling asks what’s going on, but Rex ignores him for a moment.

Ahsoka takes a deep, slightly shaky breath. “Get this done as quick as you can.”

Rex swallows. “Right.”

They move Cody the rest of the way into the store - it had been relatively easy to bribe its sympathetic owner to close up and go home for the rest of the day, and Sterling helps them get Cody onto a counter. He keeps shooting not-so-subtle concerned looks at Ahsoka - Rex had explained the situation to his  _ vod’ika  _ as best he could, and Sterling had said he understood, but Rex knows it’s much more disconcerting in person.

Rex’s meddroid, which he’s used for over half a dozen surgeries like this by now, gets to work on Cody, and Rex sets to pacing nearby. Sterling is standing with his arms crossed, staring out the storefront window, and Ahsoka is in the middle of the room, standing very still, her focus clearly elsewhere. She hasn’t gone for her sabers yet, which is a good sign.

_ Kriff. _

Rex paces faster, curling his hands into fists - he should’ve expected something like this. He’d thought they were careful enough, and he’s sure… He really believes Ahsoka didn’t plan this, but obviously Vader’s found them and if they can’t get out of here soon they’re both kriffed.

She’s gonna come with him, right? She has to.

“Ahsoka-” he starts, pausing, trying to think of the right thing to say. “If that’s Vader,” he says, “you’ve gotta come with us.”

“I can’t,” she says, shaking her head hard.

Rex glances at Sterling reflexively, for support, but his little brother looks awkward and unsure of himself and Rex shakes his head and looks back at Ahsoka. “You can’t just stay here and let him take you back, Ahsoka, that’s-” He stops himself. “Not safe.”

Ahsoka shakes her head again. “I don’t have a choice.” Then, tilting her head, she says, tense, “He left the ship.”

_ “Gods.”  _ Rex turns to check on Cody. “Kriffing droid, how long’s that gonna take?”

“I require a few more minutes,” the droid informs him, somehow managing to sound sarcastic.

Rex swears again.

“That should be fine, right?” Sterling asks, determinedly, although his voice is a little weak.

Rex forces a smile at him, nods. “Sure. Yeah, just make sure you’ve got all your shit, it’ll be fine.”

Ahsoka turns. “He’s coming to the city, I’m going to go meet him,” she says, firm. “He won’t come this way if I’m not here.”

She starts for the door, and Rex automatically reaches out to stop her, catching her upper arm. “Ahsoka-” She twists away from him and he quickly lets go of her arm. “Ahsoka, don’t, that’s a terrible idea.”

She just looks at him, for a minute, then without another word strides to the door and leaves, her cloak swirling around her legs.

_ “Kriff,”  _ Rex snaps, and storms over to lean his hands on the counter by Cody’s feet, tapping his fingers restlessly. The meddroid appears to be busily suturing and bandaging Cody’s head, beeping harmlessly to itself, and Rex shakes his head. “I’m going to kill her if Vader doesn’t do it first,” he says, half to himself.

He should go after her. If he can’t stop her he could at least help, because he  _ knows  _ that if she goes back to Vader by herself she’ll be gone again and he’ll hurt her. Rex doesn’t really think he can change that on his own, but maybe she’ll listen to him, and failing that, maybe he can sneak around and try his best attempt at shooting Vader in the back of the head.

He looks at Cody again, then at Sterling. “Okay, kid, listen up,” he says, drawing one of his blasters and checking it over. “When my slow friend here,” he gestures at the droid, “finishes with Cody, I want you to take both of them back to my ship and sit tight.”

Sterling’s eyes narrow a little.

“I’m gonna go make sure Ahsoka doesn’t get herself killed,” Rex says, stubbornly, “and if you don’t hear from me in an hour you get the hells out of here and comm the Rebellion with that frequency I gave you, ask them for help. Okay?”

“That’s… not a good idea,” Sterling says, which Rex thinks is his attempt to be polite instead of just telling him he’s being crazy.

Rex snorts. “I know. Don’t argue with me, kid, it’s my business if I wanna do something stupid.”

“I know,” Sterling mutters, and rubs his neck. “Good luck, I guess, sir.”

Rex smiles, nods, glances at Cody, and hurries out of the shop.

He doesn’t know exactly which way Ahsoka went, but the cruiser casting a shadow over the city is pretty clear, so Rex draws his other blaster and starts south towards where he knows Ahsoka and his  _ vode  _ had landed their ship.

One thing that remains as true of Vader as it was of Anakin Skywalker is that he seems to like a scene.

Rex doesn’t manage to catch up to Ahsoka, so when he gets close to the spaceport he slows down and moves off the main roadways, walking along the spaces between buildings and little alleyways until he can see the spaceport, Ahsoka’s ship, any number of little freighters and smuggling vessels, and a sleek transport that clearly belongs to Vader.

Vader is mostly turned away from Rex, standing directly in the middle of the ships, dressed in sharp black. His hair is a little shorter than Rex remembers, but other than that Rex doesn’t see much different about him.

Except Ahsoka is on one knee in front of him, very still, her eyes trained on the ground.

Rex swallows, glances around, and tries to focus. He’s got a limited window of time to help her and not a lot of options, but he has to do something.

Gritting his teeth and steeling himself, he moves away from the spaceport.

~~~

Ahsoka runs, when she leaves the shop Rex is in.

Her Master will be coming from the spaceport, and if she hurries she can catch him, keep him from going to that part of the city. She  _ promised _ Rex she’d get him Cody, and whether she should’ve or not, she’s going to keep that promise. Vader must’ve just- wondered at how long it was taking for her to finish her mission, came to check on her. Maybe he heard something about the Jedi she’s supposed to be fighting.

It’s going to be a lot harder to play out her story of losing Cody in a fight against the Jedi with her Master here, hovering over her shoulder. But she’ll make it work.

She’s able to make it to the spaceport fairly quickly, the few people on the streets besides her own men scattering out of her way, and she sees Vader striding from the spaceport, slow and confident, his cape flowing behind him on a breeze she can’t feel against sweat-sticky skin. “Master,” she says, breathlessly, approaching him and slowing to a walk, and then he looks at her and she  _ freezes. _

“First Sister,” he says, and she’s already dropping to one knee, because the  _ look _ in his eyes- 

He knows.

“I’m disappointed in you, Ahsoka,” he says, and she trains her eyes on his boots, doesn’t dare move. “I gave you the chance to stop this pointless  _ rebellion, _ to come back to me, because I love you, Ahsoka, and I thought you’d do the right thing. You’ve been doing so well, what changed?”

Ahsoka swallows, hesitates - speaking is always dangerous, when he’s in a mood like this. If she says the wrong thing, or even talks when he doesn’t want an answer, she runs the risk of getting punished. “I’m sorry, Master,” she says, finally, “I-”

_ “Liar,” _ he snarls, feet shifting like he’s going to move, and then there’s a pause and he seems to control himself. “I told you never to lie to me, Ahsoka. Were you planning to try and assassinate me?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, which isn’t smart, but it’s true- What does he  _ mean? _ She’d never-

Vader abruptly turns, sharp, and she lifts her gaze from his feet in time to watch him gesture sharply with one hand and yank towards him, and then there’s an explosive swear and someone comes tumbling off a nearby rooftop, landing on his side a couple of meters away from Vader.

Rex.

Force  _ damn _ it all to hells, why’d he come? He should’ve stayed with Cody, she’d held up her end of the deal, if he’d just stayed he could’ve gotten Cody out and been fine and never had to think about her or Vader again.

“Bastard,” Rex says, and shoots at Vader, five times, all of which Vader blocks on his saber before he seems to get tired of that and clenches his free hand into a fist, yanking the blasters away.

Ahsoka doesn’t mean to move, but it seems like she blinks and she’s on her feet, moving to set herself between the two of them -  _ why, _ part of her mind is screaming,  _ leave him, protect yourself, save yourself. _ “Master,  _ stop,” _ she says, “there wasn’t any plan to kill you, I-”

Vader backhands her across the face. She stops talking, then. “Out of my way, Ahsoka.”

_ “Ahsoka,” _ Rex says, quickly, and she swallows hard, tastes blood on the back of her throat.

“I won’t ask twice,” Vader says, voice gone hard and  _ dangerous, _ and-

She’s never thought he’d kill her before. But right now- He might.

This is how he sounds before he kills someone.

Ahsoka bows her head, lowers her eyes again, and moves out of the way, goes to stand a little behind him and to his right, where she’s supposed to be. She can still see Rex, even though she’s carefully avoiding making eye contact, and so she sees when his whole body tenses, and the Force constricts around him: Vader holding him in place so he can’t move.

“Cuff him, Ahsoka.”

She swallows hard and methodically pulls the binders off her belt, crosses over to Rex and takes one of his arms, latches the binders around one wrist, then the other, behind his back.

“You deprived me of Cody,” Vader says, “which I’m not happy about. But at least you had the decency to bring me a replacement. Let’s go.”

Ahsoka can barely breathe. Her chest feels too tight, like something’s wrapped around it and grabbed on tight, and her hands are shaking when she takes Rex’s upper arm in one gloved hand and tugs him towards the spaceport, following Vader as he strides back towards his shuttle.

She wants to say something, to apologize, maybe, or tell him he shouldn’t have come, but the words stick in her throat. 

Vader takes them to his shuttle, stays outside until Ahsoka pulls Rex in with her, and he moves past them to give a quiet order to the pilot to take them back to the  _ Executor. _ Ahsoka tightens her hand around Rex’s arm without meaning to.

She can tell Vader’s dismissed her, for the moment, so she stands in one corner, keeping hold of Rex like she would any other prisoner, shoulders straight and chin up, focusing on a spot on the wall so she doesn’t accidentally meet anyone’s eyes.

It’s a silent flight, the tension in the air making it hard to breathe. It feels like it’s never going to end.

In reality, it’s probably only ten minutes before they’re docking in the  _ Executor’s _ hangar, and Vader leaves the shuttle with a curt, “Follow me.” Ahsoka didn’t need the order, she would’ve followed him anyway, but she nods, lengthens her steps to match his (which is hard, he’s walking fast, not waiting for her) and pulling Rex along. She really doesn’t have to force him, he’s not fighting, and that- It doesn’t make sense.

He should be fighting.

They take a lift down to the detention level, to the brig, to a room Ahsoka’s intimately familiar with, even if she’s never been in it - large and round, the mirror of the dreaded interrogation room in the fortress on Nur, minus the chair. Vader nods at a metal strut attached to the wall, and Ahsoka swallows, takes Rex over to it and presses on his shoulders until he drops to his knees, then cuffs him to the strut. Cross the room to drop to one knee in front of Vader, head bowed, eyes closed for just a moment.

“I told you never to lie to me, Ahsoka,” Vader says. “All I’ve ever asked of you is to obey me, and not to lie to me. Was that so hard?”

She shakes her head. “No, Master,” she says quietly, swallowing. She never should’ve done any of this. She should’ve just- killed Rex on Yavin, then all of this wouldn’t happen, everything would be  _ fine. _

“Then why couldn’t you do it?” Vader asks, sharp. He’s pacing, now, and she watches his boots cross the mirrored black floor. “You know what I have to do now.”

“I know,” she whispers. She doesn’t tense her muscles or try to brace herself, because she knows it’s not going to do a damn thing against this - all she can do is grit her teeth and wait.

“Leave her the  _ kriff _ alone,” Rex snaps, from the side of the room, and no, he needs to be  _ quiet. _

“Oh, Commander,” Vader says, “this is as much for you as it is for her.”

The only warning she has is a flash of purple in the corner of her vision before the lightning  _ sears _ across her, all her muscles clenching and convulsing with the shock and the pain, pain that forces tears out of her eyes and a small noise past her lips before she bites down hard to stop it. She balls up her hands, tight enough if it weren’t for the gloves it’d  _ hurt, _ and closes her eyes and tries to breathe.

The lightning stops after a minute and she  _ shudders, _ lets her head hang and gulps in a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Master,” she says, hoarse, licks her lips and swallows, tries to wet her dry throat. “I never meant- I didn’t plan to betray you.”

“It doesn’t matter what you planned,” he tells her. “You betrayed me anyway, just like Obi-Wan did. Is that what you wanted?”

Ahsoka jerks her head up, flinching, stares at him. “I stayed  _ with _ you,” she says, fast. “I never left you, I never turned anyone against you, once you explained everything to me I  _ stayed.” _

Vader stalks over to her, grabs her arm and drags her up in front of him, glaring down at her, and Ahsoka has to force herself not to try and pull away. “I didn’t expect you to kill Rex,” he tells her, low. “If you’d told me the  _ truth, _ I would’ve sent Trilla or Barriss to track him down and deal with him for you.” He shakes his head, hand tightening on her arm. “But now I can’t trust your loyalty anymore.”

_ “Please,” _ Ahsoka gasps out, “don’t send me back to the interrogation room, you  _ promised.” _ She  _ can’t _ go back there, she  _ can’t, _ not after- everything. “Please, Master.”

~~~

Rex tugs his hands against his cuffs, even though he knows they won’t budge, his teeth gritted so hard his jaw’s beginning to ache. He wants nothing more than to be able to take Ahsoka and run and not stop until they’re safe - Vader’s holding onto Ahsoka too tight and she has tears in her eyes and she’s shaking and Rex can’t do anything about it.

“You made your choice,” Vader says, low, shaking his head, and lets go of her, signalling to the two troopers - brothers - who are guarding the door. Rex tries hard to meet Ahsoka’s eyes, but she doesn’t look at him, having sunk back to her knees on the floor. She looks so small, and he wants to be able to put his arms around her and tell her it’s going to be okay.

Instead, he has to kneel there while one of his  _ vode _ uncuffs him from the wall and then herds him out of the room - it’s a small comfort that when he looks back they’re bringing Ahsoka too. He tries to let some of the tension out of his shoulders. He can’t fight right now, can’t afford to make it worse, so if he’s just patient… He’ll think of something. He’ll get both of them out.

He can’t look at Vader or he feels an awful mix of anger and nausea, and it’s hard not to let it out. He tells himself there’ll be time for that later.

They’re taken to a different part of the detention block, put into ray-shielded cells, and Rex supposes he shouldn’t be surprised Ahsoka’s thrown into one too, but it worries him. The trooper takes his cuffs off and he’s left alone, and he stands at the front of his cell, massaging his wrists nervously.

Vader ignores him, fixes Ahsoka with a disappointed stare, then leaves with the troopers. Rex looks down as he passes so he doesn’t have to see his yellow eyes anymore.

It’s a relief when he’s gone.

Ahsoka is sitting down on the floor of her cell, and Rex gingerly lowers himself to the ground, too, cross-legged - his ribs and shoulder feel pretty bruised, but for now he’s grateful to be mostly unhurt.

They probably won’t send a medic for Ahsoka but he wishes they would.

“Ahsoka,” he says, quietly, hoping maybe she’ll actually look at him.

She doesn’t answer right away, then, hoarsely, says, “Yes?” still looking at the floor.

Rex shifts closer to the ray shields, wrapping his arms around his middle. “You okay?” he asks, means  _ are you in pain _ because he knows she’s not okay.

Ahsoka shrugs a little. “I’ll- be fine. You shouldn’t have come here.” She sounds  _ tired. _ Her sabers are still on her belt, which briefly confuses Rex, but then he thinks about how she’s behaved since Vader showed up and knows that she has them still because she isn’t going to use them. Or at least, Vader’s confident she won’t.

Rex shrugs, too, smiles a bit. “It’s fine, I’ll think of something,” he says, trying to be light.

Ahsoka just sighs and tugs at her gloves, pulling them off and staring at her hands like she’s trying to figure something out.

Rex swallows, rubs his forehead with one hand. Sterling will have commed Organa by now, warned him about what happened.

Cody’s probably awake too. Rex hopes Sterling was able to help him, he hopes Cody’s not too worried - he’ll be okay, he’ll have to be, there are other  _ vode  _ besides Sterling that Rex has helped that Cody should be able to shelter with. Rex imagines when he gets out of this, Cody’ll yell at him for being stupid. It’ll be good to have him back, at least, and hopefully-

Well, Rex doesn’t intend to let Ahsoka stay here.

Although Organa’s Rebellion has gained a lot of traction over the past year, Rex doesn’t any help from that quarter - it’s one thing to have a lot of tacit or explicit support, quite another to actively oppose the Empire, and it would be absolutely too much to expect that Organa could send anyone into the heart of the Empire to get them out. Which means it’s up to Rex.

“So where exactly are we?” he asks, consideringly. “Where are we going?”

Ahsoka sighs. “We’re on the  _ Executor, _ Vader’s flagship. He’s probably taking us to Nur. Me, definitely.”

“Nur is where you said you were before, right?” Rex frowns. “You mentioned- After Lothal.”

“It’s where our fortress is,” Ahsoka says, nodding, still not looking up.

“I’m sorry,” Rex tells her. “I didn’t think this would go this badly, I guess our comms weren’t so secret.”

She slumps a little, shoulders folding inward. “I guess not,” she says, glancing at him, and Rex musters another smile at her, even though it won't help.

"I'm sorry," he repeats. He stops himself from repeating that he’ll come up with something - he doesn’t think she believes him.

Ahsoka slumps a little, picking at the edge of her cloak. Then she just sighs. “You should- get some rest, it’s not going to be nice once we get to Nur.”

“You too,” Rex says, quietly, shaking his head. “Ahsoka… Thank you for helping me. And Cody.”

She shrugs. “I promised.”

“Still.” Rex rubs his forehead. “Thank you.”

“Yeah.” Ahsoka shifts and lays down on the floor, tucking her cloak around her and curling up. Rex looks at her, for a long minute, once again wanting to say so much - but he lets it go and settles his arms on his knees, resting his chin on his forearms.

She’s right, they’d better just rest.

He doesn’t sleep. Can’t tell if Ahsoka does or not.

After a long time he feels the distinctive tremor of the ship jumping into hyperspace, but they’re still left alone, and he gets up and begins to pace.

Whatever happens when they get to Nur, Rex feels that he has to make sure he can protect Ahsoka. Whatever he needs to do.

They’re in hyperspace for hours. Rex paces most of the flight, hands clenching and unclenching in fists. He’s only grateful that neither Vader nor his brothers come to bother them again.

At some point, he thinks they come out of hyperspace, but although he tries to prepare to move again, to see the fortress Ahsoka warned him about, to see Vader again - he doesn’t want to do this again. But no one shows up, so after a little while Rex decides maybe they’re just refueling.

He continues pacing, glancing at Ahsoka. She’s still curled up, her face furrowed in conflict even though she’s asleep.

_ I miss you. _

He could almost say it, because no one’s listening, but he needs to stay focused and he’s being ridiculous.

Suddenly, he hears a series of blaster shots, the clatter of armor, and he tenses, hands curling into fists. “Ahsoka,” he says, sharply. “Ahsoka, you gotta wake up.”

He doesn’t want her getting woken up by troopers or Vader.

Ahsoka shifts, stirs, eyes cracking open. She pushes herself to sitting, looks around. “What’s going on?”

There are more blaster shots.

Rex shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says, quickly, leaning close to the wall to look in the direction of the blasterfire. Ahsoka sits up straighter, frowning, looking the same way.

“This isn’t normal,” she says, which is what he was afraid of.

Then he hears heavy footsteps, and at the end of the hallway, a group of six people appears, striding towards them. Rex almost can’t process it for a moment, but at the head of the group is a man in a familiar set of orange and white armor.

_ Cody. _

What a gods-damned  _ idiot. _ Rex could almost cry, seeing him.

Beside him is Bly, and Sterling, and behind them a group of Twi’leks in rough clothes, and Rex blows out a relieved breath and half a laugh, glancing quickly at Ahsoka. She’s watching them warily through narrowed eyes.

Cody stops in front of Rex’s cell, lowering his blaster rifle and fixing Rex with a glare. “You  _ dumbass,”  _ he says, his voice a little rough. “I oughta just leave you in here, pulling a stunt like you did.”

“Shut up,” Rex answers, not sure why his voice suddenly seems to catch in his throat. “I think I did pretty good. You gonna let me out or what?”

Cody chuckles a bit, raising his blaster and shooting the panel of the cell wall several times, so it shorts out and shoots sparks. Abruptly the ray shield shuts down, and Rex lunges forward and wraps his arms around Cody’s shoulders, closing his eyes tight.

Cody hugs him back after a split-second of hesitation, almost clinging, and Rex huffs a breath. “It’s gonna be fine,” he says, very quiet, because he knows Cody still isn’t alright.

He pulls back, glances around. “Someone brought me a blaster, right?”

Sterling smiles and holds out a blaster pistol for him, and Rex takes it and heads to Ahsoka’s cell. As she’s getting to her feet, one of the Twi’lek rebels steps in his way, frowning. “The hells are you doing?”

Rex frowns, gestures for him to get out of the way. “I’ll explain when we get out of here, but we’re taking her with us.”

Someone grips his upper arm - it’s Cody, who looks grim and shakes his head. “Rex, we can’t.”

Rex stares at him, tightening his hand on the blaster.

“Rex?” Ahsoka says, unsure, and Rex shakes his head, hard, and tries to pull away from Cody’s grip on his arm.

“It’s  _ fine,”  _ he insists, sharply. “I trust her, you  _ know  _ she helped me get you out.”

“That’s not the problem.” Cody’s at his most stubbornly immobile, just shaking his head slightly. The rebels, though, look more hostile, and the man who’d gotten in his way doesn’t move. “Rex, listen, if we take her Vader’s going to come after us and we’re not prepared to deal with that, we wouldn’t stand a chance, and the rebels who are trying to help us wouldn’t either. Rex.”

Rex shakes his head, swearing under his breath and raising his blaster pistol to take aim past the rebel in his way. Before he can fire at the panel, though, Cody’s lashed out and with two quick strikes knocked the blaster out of his hand, and one of the rebels grabs the weapon off the ground and holsters it.  _ “Cody,  _ don’t you kriffing dare,” Rex snarls, yanks harder against Cody’s grip. “I’m not leaving without her, Cody, I mean it.”

“Let me  _ out!” _ Ahsoka snaps, a trace of fear in her voice, hands pressing against the ray shields, and all the Twi’leks flinch.

“Rex…” Sterling starts, hesitant, but Cody shoots him a glare and then steps in front of Rex, takes hold of both of Rex’s arms, and Rex swallows back an urge to shout at him, fight him, because he doesn’t want to do that to Cody, he doesn’t, but-

“I’m  _ sorry,”  _ Cody says, softly, “but we can’t, Rex, they won’t agree and it’s their ship and their base, and we don’t have  _ time _ for this. If we take her right now he  _ will  _ catch us.” He’s nudging Rex to walk, nearly forcing him backwards, and Rex swallows.

“No,” he says. “Codes, please, I don’t want to go, I can’t-” He’s shaking too much and he wants to try to fight past Cody, go back and help, but he can’t fight Cody right now (Cody who just got out of surgery several hours ago, who doesn’t need his  _ ori’vod _ angry at him). Cody just tightens his grip on him, pushes him to keep moving, and Rex grits his teeth and strains to look past Cody and the others at Ahsoka.

“Ahsoka,” he says, quickly, feeling like he can’t breathe, “I’m sorry, Ahsoka, I’m sorry! I’ll come back.” He feels Cody’s hands tighten again on his arms, ignores him, stays focused on Ahsoka although he knows Cody’s not gonna let him go.

Ahsoka shoves harder against the ray shields with her fists, eyes wide.  _ “Rex, _ don’t leave me,” she says, her voice verging on panic, “not again.”

“I’m  _ sorry,”  _ Rex rasps, can’t resist trying to twist free of Cody again, panic heavy in his own chest. “Ahsoka, I’m  _ going  _ to come back, I promise, okay? I’m going to.” He struggles a little, feeling tears sting his eyes, and swears. “Codes,  _ gods,  _ please.”

Cody’s face is set, but he shakes his head a little at Rex and his composure cracks a moment. “I’ll help you get her back, but we have to go,” he says, quiet, “I’m sorry.”

There’s nothing Rex can do but let Cody propel him away from Ahsoka, down the hall and then away until Rex has to force himself to move on his own although he was sure he could hear Ahsoka crying.

He’s crying himself, when they get out, trying to pretend he’s not, still wanting to turn around and go back. He can’t leave her again, he  _ can’t, _ she needs him and he was supposed to  _ protect her _ this time.

If she just waits, if she just stays safe as long as he can - he’ll come back. He will. He’ll make it up to her, he has to.

~~~

He’s gone.

He  _ left. _

Ahsoka’s on her knees by the ray shield, tears on her face, her cloak on the floor around her, leaning her head against the shield. It’s hot on her skin and she feels like she’s going to  _ crack. _

Again.

“Please,” she whimpers, even though he’s long gone, because- she can’t go back to Nur, she  _ can’t, _ Vader is going to hurt her and they’ll put her in the chair and Rex is gone now so she’s  _ alone _ and she’ll be in trouble for that too and- And-

She goes away for a while.

When Ahsoka can  _ think _ again, they’re in hyperspace, she can feel the ship’s engines vibrating beneath her knees. She hasn’t moved from her position and everything aches, but she can’t quite make herself move yet. 

Rex isn’t going to come back.

She  _ knows _ it.

He didn’t come for her the first time, why would he come now? Vader will hurt her, and then he’ll hurt them, and he’ll take her again. And she’ll have to go back to the chair.

“I don’t want to,” she whispers, hoarse. “I don’t want to, I don’t want to, please come back.”

But of course there’s no answer.

The  _ Executor _ drops out of hyperspace after another- maybe an hour or so, and Ahsoka rubs at her face and sits up, rubs her hands on her pants and then pulls her gloves back on, shaking her head and taking a few deep, shaky breaths.

Vader is going to be coming to see her, and she needs to be ready.

It’s not Vader who comes to let her out of her cell, it’s troopers in faceless white plastoid, and they march on either side of her as they escort her from the brig to the hangar to the shuttle, stand guard around her when the door closes and it lifts off.

“Am I a prisoner now?” she ventures, quiet, though she still has her sabers, so maybe not. 

“No, sir,” one of the troopers says. “Just under watch. It happens from time to time, just not usually-” He stops, and Ahsoka sighs.

Not usually with someone of her- rank.

She swallows, nods, tucks her hands behind her back and forces herself to just- breathe. She won’t break down, not in front of these troopers, she tells herself. She  _ won’t. _

But as she’s escorted off the shuttle, through the hangar and to lower and lower levels of the Fortress, she can’t stop the fear crawling over her, nearly choking her, making it hard to breathe or even walk. The Force is thick with pain down here, like a warning,  _ this is what you’ll be facing, soon. _

Why didn’t Rex take her with him?

She could’ve left, then. But now- now she’s trapped here, again, she can’t leave now.

Not that it’ll matter. He’s not coming back.

The interrogation room looks just like she remembers it. Ahsoka freezes in the doorway, can’t help it, because the  _ chair- _ “You remember how this goes, sir,” the trooper says.

Yes. She does.

She feels numb, almost shellshocked, but she crosses the shiny black floor, silent, walking low and careful, out of habit. Lets the trooper help her as she turns and steps onto the footrests and leans back, arms sliding down into the restraints; he tightens them until they’re snug but not too tight with a careful, nearly gentle hand. “Don’t worry, sir,” he says, “we have a medic on hand for after Lord Vader is done. We’ll take care of you and get you back to your room.”

Ahsoka swallows, throat dry, can’t breathe as he and the others file out of the room, leaving her alone in the dim lighting, only able to turn her head. She closes her eyes but that’s  _ worse, _ then there’s nothing to pull her out of her memories, and the Force is so heavy and pressing here and- 

She’s hyperventilating. She needs to stop.

_ “Pledge yourself to me, Ahsoka, and the pain will stop. No one will hurt you unless I let them.” _

_ “Anakin, please, you said you wouldn’t let anyone hurt me, please-” _

_ “Anakin Skywalker is dead. My name is Vader.  _ Pledge yourself to me.”

_ “Master, please!” _

No. That’s- then, the past, Ahsoka shakes her head and tries not to tremble. She has to stay focused or this is just- going to be even worse.

The door opens and she freezes, for a moment, registering Vader’s frame as he walks inside, the door hissing shut behind him. “I never wanted to do this to you, Ahsoka,” he says, walking over to her. “You’re my family, and I want to keep you safe. You remember that, right?”

“Yes,” Ahsoka whispers, staring at his chest instead of his face. She failed him. “You only hurt me if I disobey you.”

“And you’ve disobeyed me. More than that, Ahsoka, you  _ failed _ me. You  _ lied. _ How can we take down Sidious if I can’t trust you?”

“I know, I’m sorry,” she says. “I know- you can’t trust me. I didn’t mean for it to be this way, I promise, I just- I meant to go kill him, but I couldn’t do it, and so I- told him I’d get him Cody. That was all, Master, it was- for old time’s sake. Because he was an old friend and I- hadn’t forgotten that.”

“You should’ve told me,” he says, shaking his head. “I can’t have you lying to me, Ahsoka. It makes you seem weak to the other Inquisitors. I can’t keep you as my First if you’re weak, they’ll think I’m playing favorites.”

He is. But it has to seem reasonable, it has to be done so the others can’t complain. “I’m sorry,” she says again, quiet. “I do want to help you defeat Sidious.”

“Then you understand why I have to do this.”

She nods and he flips a switch and the two panels to either sides come alight with electricity, purple sparks crackling between the jagged spikes. They swing closed, towards her, and she can’t help trying to pull away even though she  _ knows _ it’s futile. Then they touch her and it’s all she can do to ride out the wave of agony.

With no one else in the room but her and Vader, Ahsoka lets herself scream, writhing against the restraints; there’s the smell of ozone in the air and she can taste copper on her tongue and every inch of her body feels like it’s been set alight, like she’s burning alive. She screams until it feels like there’s knives in her throat and until her voice and her muscles give out, and then finally the chair shuts off and she can sag against the restraints, head lolling to one side.

It  _ burns, _ all over, will last for days, and there’s blood on the back of her throat and she can barely move and every breath  _ aches. _

“You see,” Vader says, as he goes to the door, “Rex isn’t going to come back for you, Ahsoka. I’m all you’ve got. You can’t leave me again.”

“Master,” she tries to whisper, but there’s no sound, just air whistling past her lips.

He’s right. He’s all she has. Rex is gone, he left her and he’s not coming back, Cody is gone, everyone is gone. Only her Master’s stayed with her this whole time.

He only hurts her when she disobeys him.

She can’t disobey him. Not again. 

Ahsoka can barely even stand, but when the troopers come to help her back to her room, she smiles at them. She’s not confused anymore. She has Vader, and even if he hurts her - it’s for her own good. To keep her safe. To help them kill Sidious. They’re the only ones who can.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a Dramatic Rescue and the first of many important conversations, as well as the introduction of a few old friends

The rebels take them back to Ryloth and their personal base. There, Rex pulls himself together and goes with Bly to say hello to Aayla Secura, who leads this cell of rebels on Ryloth and who he'd brought Bly to about a year ago, now. Aayla was injured recently and is stuck in bed but tells him she's glad to see him.

He escapes as soon as he can to comm his contact with Organa. If Organa doesn’t give him help to get Ahsoka, it doesn’t matter, Rex will go himself, but he agreed to help Organa’s Rebellion so he could call in a couple favors. Cody’s promised, several times now, to go with him, and Sterling has too, which is a small comfort. Rex feels as if he has so little time - if he waits, he’s not sure he’ll be able to convince her to come with him when he finds her.

She told him they were being taken to Nur, he remembers, so he pulls up a starmap while he waits for his contact to answer his call and looks it over. Nur is in the Mustafar system, in the Outer Rim, but there’s minimal information about it, other than a notation about its climate - primarily a water planet, warm, hostile. Then his comm is answered, and he refocuses.

After arguing his way into talking to Organa himself, instead of his contact, Rex explains the whole situation, and if he accidentally implies that Organa will lose his help and Cody’s, Bly’s, and Aayla’s if he doesn’t help, he doesn’t bother to correct himself. He also says he understands if Organa doesn’t want to help, but that he’s going to be leaving as soon as he has a plan.

The Senator doesn’t seem to know what to say to him, for a while, except to express concern and understanding, then he sighs.  _ “You really think she’d actually go with you, Rex? Assuming you were able to contact her.” _

“Yeah,” Rex says, “I’m sure.” Mostly. Maybe not, if he takes too long to get there.

_ “Well…”  _ Organa sighs heavily enough it’s audible over the comm.  _ “I have someone who I know would like to help with that, and I can give you some funds to outfit yourself, Rex, but I’m not going to ask any of my people to get involved directly.”  _ He’s saying he thinks it’s a suicide mission. Which is fair enough - it’s not, strictly speaking, a  _ good  _ idea.

“Fair enough,” Rex says. “Who do I need to contact?”

Organa is quiet a moment.  _ “I’ll just send you a frequency, that’ll be more secure. I’ll get the funds sent over later today.” _

Rex agrees, both intrigued and irritated by Organa’s reticence - he never does anything without a good reason, but Rex would rather know who he’s signing on to work with.

Still, when he gets the comm frequency, he sends a warning ping before he comms, then when he gets an all-clear signal back - the sort they’d use in the GAR no less - he’s quick to follow up.

“My name’s Rex, I’m comming for Bail Organa,” he says, “he said you’d be interested in trying to help Ahsoka Tano.”

_ “Rex?”  _ The voice on the other end of the comm is so familiar that Rex is caught flat-footed, a light Core World accent that he hasn’t heard since- since Mandalore.

“Holy  _ shit,”  _ Rex breathes. “General Kenobi?” He rubs his hand over his mouth, breathes out a harsh, startled laugh.  _ “Gods,  _ you’re actually-”

_ “Yes,”  _ said the General, sounding amused and very definitely alive.  _ “What’s this about Ahsoka?” _

“Hang on.” And Rex gets up, leaving his comm, and practically sprints into the next room of the house they’ve been staying in, grabs Cody by the arm. “You need to come see who Organa put me in contact with,  _ ori’vod.” _

Cody, giving him a bemused look, sighs and gets up and follows him back, grumbling that Rex needs to slow the kriff down, they’ll be able to leave just as soon without Rex doing everything at such a breakneck pace.

Rex ignores him, hauls him over and sits him down by the comm. “Sorry,” he says, to Kenobi, “I’m back. Brought Cody, thought he might want to get in on the conversation.”

There’s a second of silence, then, hesitant, Kenobi says,  _ “Cody?” _

Rex isn’t sure whether he’s made a mistake not giving Cody more warning when his brother practically crumples in on himself with a frozen look on his face, reaching out and grabbing Rex’s forearm so tight it hurts. “What the hells,” he breathes, shakes his head, hard, then his jaw works a little. “Hey,” he says, louder, sounding very nearly normal.

_ “Nobody told me you were-”  _ Kenobi stops.  _ “I didn’t know you were back with us.” _

Cody scrubs at his face, gives Rex nearly a pleading look, and Rex takes over, patting Cody’s leg. “Yeah, he is. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Ahsoka helped me get him out of the Empire, and I need to go get her. Organa suggested you might want to help.”

Kenobi was quiet another minute, and when he spoke again he actually sounded uncertain.  _ “She helped you? How?” _

Rex sighs and tries to explain everything as best he can as quickly as he can, sure that if he can just convince Kenobi… They’d have a chance. When he finishes, Kenobi doesn’t answer right away, then, quietly, he says,  _ “I have a great deal I have to look after where I am. But… I’ll come meet you and help. I’ve spent some time looking into the Fortress Inquisitorius, and I may- have some ideas. And I’d like to see you all again. You particularly, Cody, I’ve been worried about you.” _

“I’m fine, sir,” Cody says, automatically, then grimaces a little. “That’ll be good.”

_ “We can talk when I get there,”  _ Kenobi says, in the knowing voice that Rex thinks he’d always reserved for Anakin’s stupider stunts and Cody’s stupider lies.  _ “And I’d prefer if neither of you called me General.” _

“Right.” Rex smiles, shakes his head. “I’ll send you our coordinates.”

He does that  _ after  _ spending a while hugging Cody, who begins to cry almost as soon as the comm is over and takes a while to get himself together. Rex rubs his back and quietly reassures him that it’s going to be okay, that General Kenobi definitely understands. “You didn’t kill him,  _ ori’vod,”  _ Rex reminds him. “It’s okay, he’s alive.”

It feels good to say. It’s been a long time since Rex has gotten such good news.

Kenobi arrives on Ryloth late that night, and once Rex has said hello, gotten a rather surprising hug, and been reminded to please not call him “sir,” he excuses himself back to his room because it’s clear that Cody’s got a lot he wants to talk to Obi-Wan about and that probably isn’t Rex’s business.

First thing the next day, they’re up and talking strategy with Sterling and Bly, who, rather to Rex’s surprise, had said he wanted to go along to help too.  _ If only so you don’t do anything stupid, _ he’d said. Like he was one to talk.

Obi-Wan explains to them that the fortress is mostly underwater, and that from what he understands it won’t be so hard to get  _ in  _ as it is to get out.

“Like the Citadel,” Rex decides, sighing. He’s not surprised, but he sure as hells doesn’t like their odds. Obi-Wan only seems a little stressed, though, which isn’t a  _ good  _ sign but is better than he expected. It means the Jedi actually thinks they can do this, it’ll just be tricky.

_ Tricky. _

A nice way of putting it.

Rex makes a trip to Alderaan to get his funds, his armor, and to check in on a few of his brothers who still live there. None of them agree to come with him, but they wish him luck, which is good enough for now.

They’re ready to leave for Nur within three days of Rex’s rescue. They take Rex’s ship, which Obi-Wan will be piloting, and as they leave Ryloth, Rex unpacks his armor and slowly works to kit up, the familiar motions a comfort. His brothers are doing the same, looking distracted, and Rex knows they’re all thinking about the war. And, unlike him, thinking about the work they’ve done for the Empire.

“We’ll be fine,” he tells them, on impulse, and Sterling shoots him a little smile.

It’s a long flight in hyperspace. Rex ends up pacing for most of it, although Cody tells him he should sit down and try to get some rest, but Rex doesn’t want to.

It’s hard not to think about how frightened Ahsoka had been, how Vader had talked to her, how she hadn’t been able to fight him. She’s alone now and Rex hasn’t been able to help her, and the fact that he  _ could  _ have already gotten her out but he had to let her go back to Nur by herself instead keeps gnawing at him. He knows Cody had probably been right to make him leave, but he doesn’t feel better about it.

But at least he’s going to be able to get her out. Or at least, he’s going to  _ try. _ She’ll at least know he tried, he hopes.

They come out of hyperspace and make atmo above Nur in an unpopulated area of the planet, miles from the worst of the Imperial patrols, and Obi-Wan keeps their flight path almost dangerously low over the planet’s watery surface towards the fortress.

They finally set down on a stretch of land, mostly hardened magma and stone, from which Rex can just see a dark spire stretching out of the water through the ship’s viewscreen. Obi-Wan looks at him, smiles just a little grimly. “Are you ready?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Rex says. “You?”

Obi-Wan’s smile thins. “Of course.”

“Liar,” Rex says, half teasing, and shakes his head, and they leave the cockpit together, and walk out of the ship with Rex’s  _ vode. _

At the edge of the water, Cody passes out rebreathers to each of them, and the  _ vode  _ check over their weapons, mostly out of habit. It’s hot, and humid, and Rex’s heartbeat is too loud. They’re so close, but he’s afraid that’s the best they’ll be able to do -  _ close. _ But that’s not good enough. He needs to get Ahsoka back.

He startles when he feels Cody’s hand grip his shoulder, and his brother steps towards him, gives him a determined little smile. “Hey, it’ll be okay,” Cody says. “We’ll get her. Promise.”

Rex swallows, nods. “I know,” he answers.

They have to, and he’s done stalling. So he shrugs Cody’s hand off his shoulder and dives into the water.

~~~

“There are intruders, First Sister,” Trilla, the Second Sister, says, drawing Ahsoka’s attention to the screen in front of them. Vader’s been away from Mustafar on some business for the Emperor, but he should be on his way back soon, which is good. “They approached from the far side of the planet. Should we intercept them?”

Trilla has her own ideas about how to defend, Ahsoka knows, but she’s not the one in command when Vader’s gone. Ahsoka is. “No,” she says, shaking her head. “Send word to Lord Vader. If they’re trying to get inside the Fortress, their only easy way in will be underwater - I’ll head to the interrogation level with some troopers. You try and mark their progress from here, stop them however you can.  _ Don’t _ call the other Inquisitors, we’ll deal with this ourselves.”

Trilla nods, and Ahsoka doesn’t wait for her to say anything, just grabs her mask and sweeps out of the control room, shoulders back, cape flowing behind her. She’s been here in the Fortress since Vader caught her on Ryloth, and she hasn’t had a chance yet to prove to him that her loyalty isn’t in question anymore. That she’s focused and ready to defeat Sidious. 

This is her chance.

She fits the mask to the closures on her black headdress, hears the faint hiss of it sealing, smiles to herself. The mask tinges her vision red, which feels fitting, in a way.

(Part of her wonders what Rex would think, seeing her now. She pushes that away with some effort, because it doesn’t matter - he left her, he’s gone. Her Master is all she has, and he’ll be happy with her after she deals with these rebels. That’s all that matters.)

She presses a button on her commlink. “Jesse,” she says, “I want a double squadron and you with me. We’re heading to the interrogation level, meet me there. Alert the rest of the garrison, but tell them to keep it quiet. Anyone spreading rumors or caught telling anyone besides myself or Second Sister about this intrusion will be killed. Understood?”

_ “Yes, First Sister,” _ Jesse says.  _ “Has Lord Vader been informed?” _

“He has. But I want this dealt with by the time he gets here.”

_ “Copy that. We’re on our way.” _

Ahsoka nods to herself, satisfied, steps into the nearest turbolift, programs it to take her down to interrogation - she hates this level of the Fortress more than any other, and as the lift shoots downward she can almost feel the ghost of her last stint in the interrogation room, pressing at her skin. She takes a deep breath, shakes herself and pushes the memories away.

She meets Jesse in the main prison area, three levels of cells with red ray shield doors, all facing out to an open central area with direct access to the lava flows below. Prisoners have died, burning alive, because they thought they could jump and reach their freedom on the platform below.

Ahsoka’d always been careful to avoid the lava, when she’d been imprisoned here. Her escape attempts had been smart, and had nearly worked, a couple times, if she’d been armed. But of course she wasn’t.

“I want you with me, Jesse,” she says, and he nods, stepping forward. “The rest of you, set yourselves up in here. The stormtroopers should encourage these rebels this way, and you’ll be able to ambush them. Kill however many you like, but the person that looks like the leader - leave them alive. I want them led towards the interrogation room.” There’s a few such rooms, like the one she’d been tortured in recently, but the one she’s thinking of is the one they use for the most difficult Jedi, the room Vader had designed himself.

It’s only reachable by two long, narrow bridges that extend out over the lava, and the room itself is wide and circular, half of it covered by a grating floor, the other half open to the lava, a small island of solid floor supporting an interrogation chair out in the open. 

It’s the perfect spot to ambush the leader of this rebel incursion, subdue them and get them into the chair and draw their intentions out of them. If all goes as planned, she should be getting a confession around the time her Master returns.

Perfect.

Jesse sets himself up in a corner of the room and Ahsoka jumps the gap between the floor and the chair, stands and leans against the chair, arms crossed. Waiting.

_ “Sir, they’ve entered the fortress through the lower levels,” _ someone says over her comm, one of the newer stormtroopers by the sound of their voice.  _ “We’re tracking them as you ord-” _

The comm cuts off with a sharp yelp and a burst of static, and Ahsoka frowns. She’d expected the stormtroopers to be killed, of course, but she’d thought they’d slow the rebels down more than they appear to be.

Well. It doesn’t matter, in the end. By the time they reach her personal force, they’ll be dealt with. Her plan will still work, and her Master will still reward her.

It  _ will. _

“Sir,” Jesse says, quietly, from across the room, and she looks over at him. “Why do you think these rebels are attacking us  _ here? _ What could they want?”

“I don’t know,” Ahsoka says, equally quiet. “I hadn’t really thought about it. Maybe they think they can steal data about the Inquisitors.”

Before Jesse can say anything else, the comm built directly into her mask pings, and Trilla’s voice says, cool but quick,  _ “First Sister, the rebels have a Jedi with them. Reports say the Jedi matches the description of Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. Are you sure you’re prepared for this?” _

Obi-Wan.

That’s  _ impossible. _

“I don’t understand, why would  _ he _ be here?” Ahsoka asks, shakes her head. “Maybe he’s after Lord Vader. I can handle him, keep him busy until my Master comes. It’ll be a good test, show how strong I’ve become.”

_ “If you say so,” _ Trilla says.  _ “Remember, if you die, I get your title.” _

“Only if you earn it,  _ Second _ Sister.” Ahsoka cuts off the comm, shakes her head. It doesn’t matter. She’ll deal with Obi-Wan. He should be alone by the time he gets here, that’s her only consolation.

But as time passes, comms continue to come in, from stormtroopers and then from her own force, saying they can’t handle this Jedi-led group of rebels, calling for reinforcements, for her own help, even though she’d told her men they wouldn’t get it. She wants to trap the rebels here.

It doesn’t seem like she’ll only be dealing with one Jedi Master, now.

After another few minutes, Jesse shakes his head and says, “I can’t raise any of them on comms. They must be dead.”

“They served their purpose,” Ahsoka says, but it’s almost automatic. She still doesn’t  _ understand _ what’s happening here, and it’s leaving her wrong-footed, unable to react to the news she’s getting. Her plan should’ve worked. Why didn’t it work?

The interrogation room’s door hisses open.

Ahsoka almost can’t understand what she sees.

The first person to step inside the room is  _ Rex, _ no helmet, hair and blacks (where she can see them) still damp from the swim, wearing his armor but with both his blaster pistols holstered. Behind him are three others - Sterling, Bly, Cody - and then, walking backwards into the room but turning to face her, clearly watching their flank, is Obi-Wan.

Ahsoka reaches up and detaches her mask, methodical, struggling to process, and pushes off the chair and hops the distance back to the main section of floor, discarding her mask on the grating and signing at Jesse to stand down, for the moment. “What the  _ hells _ are you doing here?” she snaps, focusing on Rex, one hand grabbing a saber off her belt but not igniting it yet. “I got you what you wanted, you were supposed to get off the grid and disappear.”

Rex walks towards her and out of habit she steps back, sideways, to circle him, unlit saber held defensive, ready to fight at a moment’s notice. “I told you I was going to come back,” he says, like she should’ve believed him.

Ahsoka shakes her head a little, eyes flickering away from Rex briefly to take in the others. Bly’s got a blaster trained on Jesse, is tracking his movements carefully, and the other two are watching her. Obi-Wan pushes through them, suddenly, somehow looking the same as ever, serene and composed. She wonders how composed he’ll be when her Master arrives.

“Ahsoka,” he says, gently, and hearing his  _ voice- _ It makes her instinctively want to relax, and it’s not like he’s even trying to put a compulsion on her. It’s just- her grandmaster. She’s supposed to trust him. But he betrayed her Master.

But he came for  _ her. _

“Ahsoka, we came to get you out of here,” he says, still calm, extends one hand towards her. Ahsoka bares her teeth a little, ignites her lightsaber and faces him fully, shaking her head. “You don’t have to be alone anymore.”

“I’m not leaving,” she snaps, circling him, slow. “I can’t. I won’t. I’m not going to abandon my Master, not like  _ you _ did. You failed him. I won’t.”

Even his Jedi stoicism can’t hide the flinch and the pulse of  _ guilt _ she sees and feels, and she smiles, a little, pleased with that. He has a weakness, after all.

Cody’s glaring at her, but it doesn’t matter, because if she can hurt Obi-Wan - if she can be  _ angry _ at him - then she’s not torn between the impulse to trust him.

“Ahsoka, please,” Rex says, and she glances over at him, “you know you can’t stay. We can do this.”

Why did he come back? He wasn’t supposed to come back.

“What I know is you’ve brought me a Jedi Master,” she says, fierce, “and my Master will reward me for this kill.” She reaches down and grabs her other saber hilt, ignites both red blades and faces Obi-Wan. “So are you going to fight me,  _ Master Kenobi?” _

Obi-Wan looks very tired. “I will do what I must,” he says, pulling his own lightsaber into his palm. Ahsoka doesn’t give him a chance to activate it, just leaps forward onto him, and as her boot connects with his chest she realizes he’s not looking at her.

He’s looking over her shoulder. At where Rex was standing a minute ago.

She has just enough time to register that, to watch Obi-Wan slam into the floor, before the stun blast hits her square in the back and everything goes dark.

~~~

Rex raises his blasters just as Bly fires on Jesse, a stun blast, and he crumples to the ground. Rex rushes forward, holstering his blasters, and scoops Ahsoka into his arms.

Cody helps Obi-Wan up, and looks quickly around the detention block and its branching paths up to the different levels. “Okay,” he says, “Let’s go.”

Rex nods. There’s no one else around except for Jesse, and Rex nods at him. “Sterling, you wanna bring Jesse?”

Sterling nods, hurries over and hefts Jesse up over his shoulder unceremoniously, leaving one hand free on his blaster.

“Well,” Rex says, adjusting his hold on Ahsoka, “shift ass,  _ vode,  _ or we’re kriffed.”

Cody laughs, and they hurry back the way they came, Bly and Cody and Obi-Wan forming a perimeter around Rex and Sterling, since neither of them can fight very well like this. It’s a disadvantage, and Rex isn’t strictly  _ shocked  _ they have to take Ahsoka out of here by force, but he  _ is  _ disappointed.

Their way is clearer, for a while, rushing through the dark hallways back - Rex suspects nobody had expected them to get out of their confrontation with Ahsoka so soon, if at all. Obi-Wan is in the lead, a look of intense concentration on his face, and occasionally he’ll signal them and they’ll abruptly change directions, take a different turn in the halls, narrowly miss a newly approaching patrol.

That only works about halfway, then they finally start running into more squads again, some  _ vode  _ and some not. Unfortunately, the stormtroopers here are more competent than the average Imperial grunt.

Fortunately, they’re only  _ slightly  _ more competent than the average Imperial grunt.

The real problem is that there are a lot of them, and  _ vode _ are significantly more prepared to fight them than the troopers, so it takes too long to deal with every new assault - Obi-Wan is their main advantage, though, and he keeps them moving.

They’re almost back to the place they’d come in when Obi-Wan stops them, abruptly, his hand going up, and turns. “You all need to take the lead now,” he says, calmly, nodding as if to himself. “Vader is here.”

_ “Kriff,”  _ Cody snaps. “You’re not staying behind.”

“I didn’t say I was.” Obi-Wan’s infuriatingly steady. “But I  _ am  _ watching our backs. Keep moving.”

Cody’s glare would’ve killed a shiny on the spot, but Obi-Wan doesn’t budge, and Rex shakes his head. “It’ll be fine, we just have to go.”

Cody swears, but he lets it go, and they hurry on faster. Rex tucks Ahsoka tight against his chest, anxiety making him feel sick. He just wants to get them out, but this whole place just feels  _ heavy,  _ like it might crush them, and Rex can tell the others are just as tense as he is.

They make it all the way back to the entrance they’d come in by, the wide halls that converge on a docking area and the underwater door they’d come through, and Rex is just thinking they might be okay when Obi-Wan takes several long strides away from the group, raising his saber, and there’s only the sound of a saber igniting and heavy boots warning the rest of them before Vader steps into the room, his red saber held low at his side, pristinely dressed and glowering at them.

Rex swallows and lowers Ahsoka carefully to the ground, stands with one foot on either side of her form and draws his blasters, mirroring his brothers as they level their weapons at the Sith, at the start of the dock. Sterling does the same with Jesse, nods at Rex. Vader glances at them, eyes landing on Jesse, then darting to Ahsoka, and his scowl deepens.

Then he refocuses on Obi-Wan, although Rex knows that doesn’t mean he’s ignoring them.

“Obi-Wan,” he says, his voice thick with anger. “It wasn’t enough to betray me, now you want to steal my apprentice?”

“She actually  _ wanted _ to leave,” Rex snaps, defensive. “She’s not  _ yours  _ and you’re not getting to take her again.”

“I’d think,” Vader says, smoothly sharp, “if she wanted to leave, you wouldn’t have to stun her to take her with you.” It’s damned hard to meet his eyes, but Rex does anyway, lifts his chin defiantly. Vader sneers a little. “Her loyalty is no longer wavering.”

“Fuck you,” Rex snarls. “You don’t know shit about loyalty.”

Obi-Wan shoots him a look, as if he seriously thinks he can tell Rex what to do these days.

Abruptly, Vader curls his hand into a fist, and Rex feels his limbs seize up a moment before Vader flicks his wrist and flings Rex hard away from the group, and he crashes into the ground shoulder-first, hears blasters firing.

“My apprentice, please,” Vader says, lowly, and Rex struggles hard to get up again, sees that Cody has moved to stand in front of Ahsoka instead, and his  _ vode  _ fire at Vader again, Vader blocks the shots, and then suddenly Obi-Wan leaps forward to engage him.

Rex coughs a little, shoves himself off the ground, ignoring a stab of pain in his shoulder, and rushes back to the others and picks Ahsoka up. Vader’s focus is momentarily narrowed in on Obi-Wan, and their sabers are impossible to track as they circle each other.

“We need to go,” Rex says, to Cody, fierce. “You make sure your Jedi is coming, I’m getting Ahsoka back  _ now.” _

Cody nods.

Bly takes Jesse from Sterling, puts his own rebreather in Jesse’s mouth and dives into the water with his arm around their brother’s chest. Sterling is right behind them, and Rex swallows, nods at Cody, and adjusts his hold on Ahsoka, puts her sabers on his own belt. He gives her his rebreather, hears a snarl from Vader and Cody’s blaster firing, but he just pulls Ahsoka with him into the water.

Sound is blessedly muffled under the water, and Rex follows the shapes of his brothers through the dark, to the heavy durasteel door that slides open for them. He doesn’t feel like he can swim fast enough, and Ahsoka is dead weight in his grasp, but they’re out of the fortress in a moment.

Despite knowing that Vader’s not behind them (yet, at least), despite knowing that Cody and Obi-Wan  _ must  _ be behind them, it’s an awful swim. Every time they come up for air, Rex expects to be shot, but they’re not, and after what feels like forever, they’re struggling up onto the shore, by their ship, and Bly fumbles at Jesse’s belt and comes over with a pair of cuffs he’d had, hands them to Rex. “Your Jedi’s not gonna wake up in a good mood, Rex,” he says, dryly, and Rex nods, takes the cuffs and gestures to the ship.

“It’ll be fine, let’s just get them on board and lock them up, we can get my meddroid working on Jesse.”

Bly nods, smiles at him, and Sterling helps him move Jesse onto the ship.

Rex puts Ahsoka in his quarters, her hands cuffed in front of her, and they settle Jesse in the hold and Rex gives his meddroid a lecture on the urgency of their situation and also the likelihood that it’s going to be a bumpy flight out, so please for the love of the Force just make it work.

Obi-Wan and Cody are only a few minutes behind them, but it feels like forever - but as soon as both of them, dripping and exhausted, have climbed into the ship, Obi-Wan takes over the pilot’s seat and Rex shuts himself in his quarters with Ahsoka, telling Obi-Wan to set a course for Florum.

He strips out of his upper body armor and pulls on a jacket over his damp blacks, then carefully pulls off Ahsoka’s boots and gloves, wants to take her cape but he worries he’d wake her up.

Then, while he waits for her to wake up, he puts in a comm to an ally who might actually be able to hide them from Vader, his foot tapping an uncertain rhythm on the floor.

“Hey,” he says, “it’s Commander Rex, I need some help.”

_ “Oh, Rex!”  _ Hondo Ohnaka, as always, sounds absolutely delighted to hear from him, unbothered by everything.  _ “Hello! What is it that Hondo can do for you.” _

Rex snorts. “How do you feel about trying to keep an Inquisitor locked up, Hondo?”

_ “I think you’re crazy,”  _ Hondo says, amused and blunt.  _ “That sounds like something for you to deal with and me to laugh about with you over drinks.” _

“No thank you.” Rex rubs his face, shakes his head. “Hondo, it’s… Ahsoka.”

There’s a long moment of quiet.  _ “Ah, the little Jedi,”  _ Hondo says, his affected carelessness a little wavery.  _ “You are telling me she’s one of those Inquisitors, are you?” _

“Yeah, but I’m trying to get her free. I don’t think she wants to be there, and we got her away from Vader, but I need somewhere to hide her.” Rex rubs his jaw. “I know that’s a lot, but I know you’ve got experience.”

_ “Ha, experience.”  _ Hondo sounds almost tired.  _ “I can do a lot of things, Commander, but I don’t know about fooling the big Sith crazy himself, you know. He never was a sharp one but he knows where I live.” _

“Yeah, but why would he look with you? I don’t think you were ever exactly friends with me and unless he knows you have anti-Imperial sympathies… I doubt he’s really kept track of you.”

_ “No.”  _ Hondo laughs.  _ “I have a good base of operations here, my friend, I don’t want to lose it.”  _ He pauses, though, then says, slowly,  _ “Do you have a plan B?” _

“No.”

_ “Damnit, Commander Rex, there always has to be a plan B.”  _ Hondo tsks, makes an uncertain noise, then swears.  _ “I see what you’re doing. But fine. Fine, bring her here. If this gets me strangled by Darth Skywalker I’m going to kill you personally.” _

“Noted,” Rex says, with a slight chuckle, then there is a stir of movement from Ahsoka and he swallows. “Be there in a couple hours, Hondo.”

_ “Fine, fine, Commander,”  _ Hondo says, then, almost hesitantly, he adds,  _ “I hope the little Jedi is alright.” _

“Yeah. Thanks. Me too.” Rex hangs up the comm, focuses on Ahsoka.

Ahsoka shifts again, and her eyes open, a bit bleary at first, still yellow. She looks around silently, a moment, then her muscles tense and her eyes widen fearfully. Abruptly, she jerks her hands against the cuffs, hard, tugging against them and trying to pull her hands out of them even though she can’t.

“Ahsoka.” Rex pushes off the wall, quickly, crosses to her. “Ahsoka, it’s okay, it’s just us.”

She flinches away from him, straining harder against the cuffs. “Let me  _ out,”  _ she demands, hoarse.

Rex stops, holds his hands out. “Ahsoka, I’m sorry about those, I just need to know you’re not going to hurt us.  _ Udesii.” _

Ahsoka’s chest is heaving with panicked breaths, and she’s staring at him. “Take them off,” she says, trying to sound fierce, but it doesn’t really work,  _ “now.” _ Rex swallows and begins to shake his head, and she adds, “Please,” quieter.

Rex kneels down by the bunk, keeping eye contact. “Ahsoka, if I take them off Vader’s going to know where we are and I can’t let him find us.”

“I’ll shield from him,” she says, fast,  _ “please,  _ just take them off.”

Rex swallows, then nods. “Alright. Alright, Ahsoka, I’m trusting you here.” He reaches over, unlocks the cuffs with one hand while subtly settling his hand over her sabers on his belt in case she tries to take them. He wants to squeeze her shoulder, take her hands, try to help, but he thinks she’s afraid of him so he pulls his hand back and settles back on the floor.

~~~

Ahsoka almost can’t breathe. Rex pulls the cuffs off and the Force rushes back in to fill the void, her headache immediately softening, and she pushes back towards the wall, quickly. Her clothes are still wet and cold against her skin - they must’ve left the Fortress through the water - and the ship’s engines hum like they’re in hyperspace. Rex is sitting there, watching her, and she can feel Vader searching for her, reaching through their bond, and with an apologetic hum she pushes him out, throwing up her strongest shields, like she said she would.

Her sabers are gone. The last thing she remembers, before the ship, is jumping at Obi-Wan, to try and kill him or take him prisoner, and then-

Vader’s going to be  _ so angry. _ He’ll put her back in the chair. And Rex’s people- They  _ left her, _ they’re going to- none of them trust her, so- She knows what that means. 

“Everyone’s going to- I can’t  _ stay here, _ Rex,” she says, pleading with him to  _ understand. _ “Vader will- And the people here, I can’t- I don’t want to be hurt. You have to let me go back, he’ll be so angry.”

Rex is just looking at her from where he’s crouched down on the floor by the bunk. She wants her sabers back, wants the safety and security and control they promise. “Nobody here’s gonna hurt you, Ahsoka,” and he’s so gentle, she doesn’t understand, “and we’re not going to let Vader find you.”

“You don’t understand,” she says, shaking her head. “And- of course they will, you have to make sure you can trust me.” Another possibility pops into her head and she freezes, whispers, “Or- are you just going to keep me in the cuffs all the time?” She  _ can’t _ do that, she can’t, being cut off from the Force is horrible. It leaves her vulnerable and out of control and that’s the worst possible fate for an Inquisitor.

Rex reaches over with one hand, and it’s only sheer force of will that holds Ahsoka in place, but all he does is rest his hand on top of hers where it’s twisted in the fabric of her cape - such an obvious tell, but she can’t seem to relax her muscles, her heart jittering in her chest like a caged bird, her breath erratic. The warm weight of his hand on hers is an anchor point and she doesn’t mean to focus on it, because she  _ can’t, _ she has to get back to her Master, but she almost can’t help herself. “No, Ahsoka,” he says. “Right now we’re going somewhere to hide out for a while and we’re going to go from there.”

He looks sad, she thinks. She’s not entirely sure why.

“I have to go back,” she says, but quieter, less frantic, some of the tension easing its way out of her shoulders. She wants her sabers back, and her Master is shoving at her shields, trying to break through. “You don’t understand, Rex, he’ll hurt me.”

Rex’s voice is low and gentle when he answers her. “I’m not gonna let him. We’re gonna be fine now.” He says that like he believes it.

Ahsoka can’t.

“I want to go back,” she says, pleadingly. “Please, Rex.”

Rex leans forward and she’s torn between pulling away and reaching for him, ends up frozen in place as he squeezes her hand, soothes his thumb over her knuckles. “Ahsoka, no. I’m not letting you go back, and I’m not letting him hurt you again.” He’s soft, but firm and serious, and she swallows. “Look at me, this is gonna be better.”

She darts her eyes up to meet his, because  _ look at me, _ but she can’t hold his gaze for more than a second or two before she has to look down again. She ends up staring at his hand on hers - bare, her gloves are missing along with her boots - the motion of his thumb almost hypnotising. She can’t remember the last time she’s been touched with that much care.

“I’m scared, Rex,” she whispers.

“I know, I’m sorry.”

Ahsoka rubs at her eyes with her free hand and suddenly she’s crying, can’t stop herself, and it’s so- She can’t be this  _ vulnerable _ but she just wants to go  _ home. _

(She doesn’t even know where home is, anymore. On the bridge of a starship, maybe, with Anakin and Rex and Obi-Wan with her, but that doesn’t exist now.)

Rex moves to sit on the bed next to her and she sniffles and ducks her head, reaching to tug her cape up over her face. He settles a hand between her shoulders, light and careful, and she needs to pull back because she’s vulnerable and he could hurt her, but she can’t make herself do it, and after a minute he slides his arm around her and tugs her into his chest.

She can’t help tensing, for a moment, but there’s no pain and he’s just-  _ here, _ steady beneath her cheek, and Ahsoka closes her eyes and lets herself lean into him and chokes out, “I want to go home.”

Rex wraps his other arm around her and rubs her shoulder, gentle and still so careful, says, “It’s okay, ‘Soka, it’ll be okay.” 

But it won’t be. It can’t be.

Vader is going to hurt her and Rex’s friends are going to hurt her and she- how is she supposed to be in control, to make them afraid of her? She can’t hurt Rex and they have the cuffs.

She feels very small, all of a sudden, and without totally meaning to she twists one hand into the fabric of Rex’s jacket, holding on tight like that could protect her. He pulls her a little closer against his chest and Ahsoka breathes in the smell of the well-oiled leather and something salty, from the water maybe, and lets out a long, shaking breath, feels her body finally starting to relax.

She shouldn’t be relaxing, she  _ shouldn’t, _ she’s alone in enemy territory but- she can’t fight it, because Rex has always been safety and warmth and  _ home _ and that’s all she wants, right now.

~~~

Rex isn’t sure that he’ll be able to let go of Ahsoka again now that he’s holding her, his throat tight, and the last thing he wants to do is lock her up again. He just wants to take her somewhere safe and make sure no one can get to her again, but he reminds himself this isn’t going to be easy. He’s worried about her seeing Obi-Wan again - even his brothers talking to her might be too much.

(He hopes Jesse is okay. He’ll find out soon enough, but for now he can’t leave.)

He rubs one hand up and down Ahsoka’s back, noting that she at least feels less tense, although she hasn’t let go of his jacket. After a moment, he ventures to say, quietly, “Here’s the thing, Ahsoka, we’re going to go hide out with Hondo Ohnaka on Florrum.”

Ahsoka sniffs, a bit, then, in a shaky attempt at bravado, says,  _ “Pirates, _ really? That’s your plan?”

Rex chuckles a little. “Yes, actually. A pirate who’s inconveniently captured several Jedi  _ and  _ a Sith already, mind you. He can help us stay off Vader’s radar. But…” Rex stops, sighs, and tightens his hold on Ahsoka again. “Ahsoka, unless you’re willing to do something about your bond with Vader, we’re going to have to cuff you again.”

Her muscles tense up again, and she shakes her head. “I can’t,” she insists, and Rex takes a deep breath.

“I’m sorry, I don’t want to have to,” he says, quietly, “but if he finds us we’re  _ kriffed,  _ Ahsoka. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think you can just shield against him forever.”

Ahsoka presses her face into his shoulder. “I can’t break it,” she says, muffled, “he’ll be angry with me, but- the cuffs-” She shivers.

Rex soothes his hand down her back, struggling a little. “I know,” he says. “I’m sorry. This is the best I can do right now, I don’t like it either. I’ll make sure you’re okay, I promise.”

Ahsoka takes a shaky breath in. “If I break the bond, I won’t be able to go back,” she says. “He’ll treat me like a traitor.”

“Join the club,” Rex says, trying to joke, then shakes his head. “But alright, okay. But we don’t have a lot of options, then.” He squeezes her shoulder with one hand, sighs. He doesn’t want to cuff her again, and he  _ wishes  _ she could just break the bond with Vader, but he understands that scares her, he understands it’s a lot and it’s complicated. They’ll just have to make it work.

Ahsoka pulls back a little, looks up at him. “I hate the cuffs,” she says, “I don’t- like feeling vulnerable.” Her voice sounds small, uncertain, and Rex swallows.

“I know,” he says, low. “But I don’t know what else I can do, Ahsoka, I  _ won’t  _ let him find us. We don’t have to make you wear the cuffs very long, but I just-” He shakes his head. “I don’t know what else I could do to keep him from coming after us.”

Ahsoka swallows, and rubs her eyes with her free hand. Then, after a moment, she takes a deep breath. “If I- break it, I won’t have to wear the cuffs, right? And you said you aren’t going to let him near you.”

Rex nods, careful. “Yeah. If you’ve got another idea I’d love to hear it, but…”

Ahsoka is quiet, for a moment, then she takes another deep breath and nods. “Okay,” she says. “Okay, I- I’ll trust you, here.” She closes her eyes, a furrow between her brows, and Rex hugs her closer, feeling oddly guilty, even though he knows this is better. After a second, Ahsoka flinches a little and opens her eyes again.

“Sorry,” Rex says, quietly, although he’s not really sure why.

Ahsoka leans her head back against his shoulder. “You can’t leave me,” she says, very soft, “not again.”

Rex glances at her, sighs and rubs his hand over his eyes. “You know I never wanted to,” he says, seriously. “If I can help it, I’m not gonna lose you again, okay?”

Ahsoka nods a bit, eyes drifting shut, and shifts so her back in more comfortably against his ribs. She’s quiet, and Rex sighs, closes his own eyes, tries to settle down. He just wants them to be alright. But there’s something soothing about her being there, about the knowledge that his brothers are just in the next room and won’t leave again, the assurance that Vader can’t find them so easily. (For now, anyway.)

Ahsoka, after a few more minutes, when he’s begun to think she’s asleep, sighs and says, “I shouldn’t be relaxing right now.”

Rex hums. “Why not?”

“‘Cause I’m in enemy territory,” she says, matter-of-fact, eyes still closed.

“Oh. Right.” Rex shouldn’t feel hurt, but the comment does sting a little. He determinedly pushes back the feeling, snorts a little. “Well,  _ I’m  _ not complaining.”

_ “You  _ aren’t enemy territory,” Ahsoka says, tiredly, and despite everything that makes Rex laugh.

He squeezes her shoulder and glances down at her with a raised eyebrow, although she can’t see him. “You know everyone here came for  _ you,”  _ he says, mildly.

Ahsoka, hesitant, asks, “All of them?”

“Yeah,” Rex answers. “Well… Okay, Bly might have come more because I asked him to, but everyone else came because they wanted you back too. I’m not the only one who’s missed you, you know.”

Ahsoka opens her eyes and looks up at him, thoughtfully. Then, she closes her eyes again, and says, softly, “I didn’t think you’d come back.”

“I guessed that.” She’d said she expected him to go lie low, and she hadn’t seemed… precisely happy to see him. Which is fine, he knows they’ve got a lot to work through, but all the same.

“It wasn’t safe for you,” Ahsoka says, “and- Well, I’m an Inquisitor now.”

Rex smiles. “You’re still Ahsoka. And you haven’t been safe.”

Ahsoka looks at him again, confusion flickering in her eyes. “What do you mean?” she asks.

Rex sighs - he feels bone weary, and he shifts and pulls one hand back to brush over his hair, which is mostly dry. “Just that- You matter to me, whatever happens, and… I don’t know what you wanna do next, but I wanted to get you the chance to decide.”

Ahsoka swallows, doesn’t meet his eyes. “I want- to stay with you, if I can’t go back to Vader.”

Something about that feels… wrong, like… He did take her from Nur somewhat against her will, he knows that, although she had asked him to before and he doesn’t think she  _ truly _ wanted to stay. But he feels as though she doesn’t have a choice after all, and it feels wrong that she’s only here because he made her be, and it feels wrong that he’s cuffed her and locked her up and convinced her to break her bond with Vader.

He’s trying to  _ help,  _ he  _ knows  _ she was only getting hurt with Vader, but gods, he still feels a little dirty for it.

He looks across the room, takes an unsteady breath. “Okay,” he says, not totally trusting himself to say anything else. He wants to talk to Cody, it would help, he thinks. But he doesn’t want to let go of Ahsoka.

She closes her eyes again, settles in, and after a while Rex thinks she actually may have dozed off, because she’s breathing slow and deep. Cautiously, then, he pulls away from her and gets off his bunk, leaves her to rest and goes out into the hold.

Jesse is sitting with Cody, talking quietly, both of them looking tired, and Rex has choked out a hoarse laugh before he can think and rushes over, bends down to grab Jesse in an awkward hug. Jesse tenses, but after a moment hugs him back, tight.

“Jesse,” Rex says. “Oh my gods, you’re okay.”

“More or less,” Jesse answers, which is a lie, but it’s a brave one, anyway. “Thanks for not leaving me.”

“Of course.” Rex hangs onto him for a minute. He’s missed all his  _ vode  _ so much, having Jesse and Cody back is…

It’s the best part of all this.

He excuses himself reluctantly, after a minute, to go talk to Obi-Wan, whose only reaction after being given Hondo’s coordinates and Rex’s plan is to grimace, sigh, and say, “This will be fun.” Rex just snorts and goes back to his brothers.

This is going to be hard. But he’s not doing it  _ alone,  _ and that makes it so much better.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter this time around, but we have most of another chapter completed. Thank you all for your interest, enjoy!

Ahsoka wakes up by herself, which really isn’t all that unusual, she’s used to it.

It takes her a minute to remember she’s not supposed to be used to it anymore.

She’s still on the ship, on the same bunk she’d been on when she’d woken up from the stun blast, but Rex isn’t in the room anymore, and she frowns, pushes herself upright, slowly, realizes with a start she’s still uncuffed. He-

Ahsoka rubs her hands over her wrists, can’t help smiling a little, because he said he wouldn’t cuff her and he didn’t. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but it’d just felt natural, letting him hold her, and- Safe. Even though she shouldn’t be safe.

She can almost feel her M- Vader’s rage, even though she knows the bond is gone. (That shouldn’t be a reassurance. For some reason, it is.)

Her head hurts, she notices, rubs at her temples. It’s the feedback from the broken bond. It’s going to hurt for a while.

She looks around again, sees her boots and gloves set neatly by Rex’s armor, and she gets up and goes over to them, pulls on the boots, runs her fingers lightly over Rex’s cuirass, tracing the dents and scratches she knows almost as well as the lines on her palms. His helmet is sitting next to the stack, though he hadn’t worn it in the Fortress, and Ahsoka picks it up with her gloves, goes back over to the bunk and sits down again, sets the gloves next to her legs and the helmet on her lap, rubs her thumb over the jaig eyes and the blue lines around the visor.

The paint is worn, but it’s still in good condition, and when Ahsoka looks into the visor she can see her own face reflected back at her, tired, eyes sickly yellow and exhausted, dark shadows under them. The dark Inquisitor uniform just makes her look severe, and cold, and she wonders how strange she must look, to Rex. He’d said- she remembers he’d thought she was dead.

She wonders how she’s seemed, to him, now that he’s seen her again.

She should try to talk to him. To  _ really _ talk to him, not the awkward, strained conversation they’d had in the cave on Vanqor, because if she’s going to be- not an Inquisitor- Well. She should start learning how to do that again.

_ You’re still Ahsoka, _ he’d said. She doesn’t think she’s really- been herself, not since Vader took her. And if she can’t go back to Vader, then-

Ahsoka sets the helmet off to one side and pulls on her gloves, more out of habit than anything else, pushes herself off the bed and goes over to the door. It hisses open when she walks up to it and she steps out into the same hold she’d been cuffed in, once- 

And freezes.

Cody, Rex, Jesse, Sterling, and Bly are all sitting around on crates and boxes of supplies, and they’ve all turned to look at her - she can see her sabers on Rex’s belt and her fingers itch to pull them to her, but she forces herself not to think about that. She’s shifted into a defensive stance almost automatically, she realizes, but although she tries to relax it she can’t quite.

“Hey,” Rex says, smiling at her, and she tries to smile back at him with very little success.

She should’ve stayed in the room, probably.

“You didn’t cuff me again,” she says tentatively, noticing Bly frown and Jesse shift awkwardly where he’s sitting, probably thinking about the orders she’s given him over the last two years, the Jedi they’ve killed together.

Bly looks over at Rex, says, quietly, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“It’s fine, Bly,” Rex says, giving the other clone a  _ look, _ and then he looks back at Ahsoka again, back to smiling, warm. “I told you I wasn’t going to.”

“I know you did,” she says, trying not to be too tense, “but I thought you might.” Or, well, she wasn’t sure. “Your armor’s faded.”

Rex frowns a little at her, says, “Yeah, paint’s kinda in short supply. Can’t wear it anyway, so…”

When he puts it like that, she feels a little ridiculous, saying it out loud. It’s silly to imagine Rex would still be like he was on Mandalore, the last time she’d really  _ seen _ him, but somehow that’s how he’s always been in her memory, a little smile and a salute before they parted ways, bacta patch fresh on his temple.  _ See you around, _ he’d said.

_ May the Force be with you, _ she’d told him.

She doesn’t want to think about that.

“Are you going to keep my sabers?” she asks, abruptly, changing the subject with an effort, and she notices how even Cody looks at Rex, this time.

He sighs, says, “For now I think most of us would feel better about that.”

Ahsoka scuffs one boot, keeps herself from shifting, says, “Well- Just don’t lose them.” She doesn’t want to go back to being alone in the room with nothing but the dull ache in her head for company, but it’s obvious from the way Rex’s brothers are watching her that- there’s tension, and she’s not totally sure she shouldn’t fight them, anyway. She  _ knows, _ or she thinks she knows, that they’re not a threat, but- well, she’s not sure. So she tucks her arms behind her back, says, “Thank you for not cuffing me,” and turns to go back into the room.

She wants to try and really talk to him, but that’s not going to happen now, not with too many extra unknowns.

A minute or two after she’s gone back over to the bunk, the door hisses open and Rex comes in, and she blinks, surprised. “I thought you’d stay with- them,” and she gestures back towards the door.

Rex doesn’t come any further into the room, just crosses his arms over his chest, says, “I’ve been out there for a couple hours. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Ahsoka shrugs one shoulder, feeling the vibration in the ship’s walls abruptly decrease before there’s a jolt, the ship dropping back into realspace - they’re at Florrum, then. Is Rex going to cuff her again when he takes her to Hondo? “You said they came for me, but they read me as a threat,” she says, mildly, because she’d recognized his brothers’ body language - there’s a look most of them get, something she thinks they inherited from Jango, that she’d become intimately familiar with, over the course of the war. She’d seen it on his brothers when she’d stepped into the hold.

He nods, says, very factual, “Yeah, they do. Because you’ve been shit to them, and we had to haul you back here against your will. They still wanted to help, though, and I didn’t have to convince most of them.”

“I didn’t treat them like shit,” Ahsoka protests, frowning at him. “I still used their names, I still treated them like people, I-”

Before she can finish the sentence there’s a rap on the door and Cody sticks his head in, says, “Rex, we hit atmo.”

Rex glances over his shoulder for half a second before looking back at her, assessing, almost. “Alright, we’re coming. Try not to let Hondo talk Obi-Wan to death.”

She’d known, logically, that Obi-Wan was on board the ship somewhere, could even sense him if she thought about it, but-

Cody nods and backs out of the room, and she frowns at Rex, says, “He betrayed Anakin, you know, made Padme doubt him and leave him.”

Rex shakes his head. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”

“You don’t know,” she says, shrugging and standing, balancing on the balls of her feet as the ship sways. “Do you know what happened between them? I do.”

~~~

Rex sighs, glances back over his shoulder briefly, then looks at Ahsoka again. He feels more frustrated than he wishes he did, because he wants to be patient - he knows things can’t just go back to normal, and Ahsoka has changed, but it’s hard to talk about these things without feeling angry. “No,” he says, “because up until a few days ago I thought he was dead. But based on how Vader’s been treating his friends lately I’d be willing to bet that blaming Obi-Wan is a mistake.”

Ahsoka shrugs. “Maybe,” she says. “But from what I learned, I don’t think it is.”

Rex thinks she wants him to ask her about it, when he’d much rather forget the conversation and go wait to see Hondo, but he knows that would be selfish. Besides that, it matters what she thinks of Obi-Wan, when the Jedi Master is here too - Ahsoka probably won’t talk to Obi-Wan, so at least if Rex knows what she thinks he did, he could tell Obi-Wan himself. So, gritting his teeth, he asks, “Why?”

Ahsoka sighs. “It’s a long story, but he made Padme doubt Anakin and he tried to kill him.”

“Was that before or after Anakin joined Sidious and took my brothers to attack the Jedi Temple?” Rex asks, flatly. There’s the settling jolt under his feet of the ship landing, and he shifts, glances over his shoulder.

“After, I guess,” Ahsoka says, blinking.

“Then it sounds like they were right to doubt him. And if I’d have run into him then, I think I’d have tried to kill him too.” Rex thinks he does well at keeping his voice even, smooth, not angry, although thinking about any of this, but especially thinking about Anakin, makes him want to break things.

“You don’t understand, Rex,” she says. “He was trying to save Padme’s life. He wants to kill Sidious.”

“What was he  _ saving  _ her from exactly, because I don’t think it worked. She’s dead.” Rex shakes his head. “This is- I don’t give a shit what his excuses are, he betrayed all of us and he’s still doing it, and these days it doesn’t matter  _ why.” _ His chest and throat hurt, feel tight, and he thinks he should just let it go. They have things to do. He can’t afford to be angry right now, and he knows- it’s not her fault, really, he can’t be getting so upset.

Ahsoka shakes her head, sharply, and abruptly marches past him out of his room, and he just stops himself from grabbing her arm to stop her. He hurries after her, signals  _ stand down  _ at his  _ vode,  _ who’d immediately gotten to their feet when she walked out, although to their credit they’d left their weapons in their holsters. Cody isn’t there, anymore, so Rex suspects that he and Obi-Wan have already left the ship.

“Hang on,” Rex snaps, shortly.

Ahsoka turns partway towards him. “What?” she answers, just as tense.

“You don’t just get to march out of my ship and do whatever you want, I have a deal with Hondo to hide us and I need him to actually trust this’ll work. So at least kriffing act like you’re going to stick around for more than a couple minutes, I don’t-” He stops. “Just- I need you where I can keep an eye on you.”

Ahsoka glares at him. “If you want me to be your prisoner, then you might as well cuff me again.”

“I don’t know, maybe I should, because I’m not sure this is gonna work,” Rex says, jutting out his jaw. Jesse hasn’t moved since they walked out of his room, but Bly’s edged slightly in front of him, because he looks tense enough to run.

“If I was going to kill you all I would’ve  _ done it  _ already.” Ahsoka shakes her head, frustrated, and gestures at him. “What are you going to do, take the Force away and leave me in a cell the rest of my life? You’ve already taken my lightsabers.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Fine,” she snaps. “I’ll just sit in here and be good until you decide I’m allowed to leave.” She turns on her heel and strides back into his room, and Rex swears under his breath, hesitates, then leaves the hold of the ship and marches down the boarding ramp into Florrum’s hot sunlight.

Cody, Obi-Wan, Hondo, and a couple pirates are standing in a loose circle, and Hondo is talking loudly, his hands gesturing all over the place as if he’s trying to catch Obi-Wan up on four years of news. As Rex walks up, though, he grins and stops, briefly. “Rex!” he says, looks around dramatically. “Where’s the little Jedi? Or Inquisitor, I guess, now.”

Obi-Wan looks at Rex, too, frowning slightly. Rex just goes over to Cody and gives Hondo a tired smile. “She’s in the ship,” he says. “We’re… going to have to talk about what to do with her.”

He hears footsteps behind him, but when he looks back it’s just Bly and Jesse.

Hondo makes a considering noise. “I thought we were going to hide her because she was a prisoner.”

“It’s…” Rex rubs his face. “It’s complicated. We’ll need to put her in a cell probably, yeah, but… Kriff, Hondo, to be honest with you I don’t know what we’re gonna do.”

“Great,” Hondo says, rubbing his chin and only seeming slightly concerned. “Better safe than sorry, Commander Rex, if we do this wrong I’ll be dead. Or at least, some of these people will be.” And he gestures, lazily, at his companions, who exchange tired looks.

Rex can’t really laugh, but he smiles a little and nods. “Helpful.”

“Hondo is nothing but helpful,” Obi-Wan says, mildly, lips curving up just a bit. “Do you actually have any suggestions?”

“Yes, in fact, my non-deceased friend.” Hondo waves his hand. “We lock her up in my base, and if she’s nice for a while, then we let her out.” He shrugs. “If the Commander is right and she doesn’t want to kill us all, we can make it comfortable for her, but I don’t want her roaming around my men causing problems.  _ And  _ I’m not totally sure she likes me.”

“Because you kidnapped her,” Rex says.

“Yes, exactly, thank you for remembering.” Hondo dusts at the arm of his coat, nods. “I assume you can arrange that, Rex, Kenobi?”

“Sure,” Rex snaps. “That’s great, we’ll take care of all that for you, Hondo.”

The pirate raises an eyebrow at him, but doesn’t say anything except, “Thank you, I’ll get a, ah… room ready for her.”

Rex nods, shortly, feels Cody’s hand on his arm and ignores it. “Sure. Okay.”  _ Deep breaths, _ he thinks. “Thank you, Hondo.”

Hondo inclines his head, turns, and walks away, and Rex sighs heavily and glances at Cody. “I don’t-” He stops, shakes his head. “I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t want to go get her and tell her we have to lock her up.”

Cody considers him. “Do you want me to go get her?”

Rex hesitates, then swallows and shakes his head. “If you go, she’ll be more upset, so- I better do it.”

“Okay.” Cody nods, then abruptly steps forward and puts his arms around Rex, and Rex swallows and hugs him back, buries his face in his brother’s shoulder. It helps a little, even if it feels too much like everyone’s looking at him, waiting for him to do something. At least Cody isn’t. Then he takes a deep breath and pulls back and gestures at the ship. “I’m gonna just… go get her, I guess,” he says, rubbing his hands over his face.

“It’s gonna be fine,” Cody says, quietly.

Rex snorts. “Yeah. Yeah, I know,” he says. He  _ should  _ know. Things  _ do  _ seem like they’ll get better, he knows it. But it feels like a lot.

Bigger than him, anyway.

~~~

She shouldn’t have snapped at him.

Ahsoka sighs, rubs at her face and looks over at Rex’s helmet again, still sitting on the bunk where she’d left it, abruptly shoves it to the floor. It’s too much of a- a taunt, almost, saying  _ look, things are just the same, see this? You’re safe. _

Except she’s  _ not, _ nothing’s the same and she doesn’t even know what to do anymore, what’s right and wrong. Even when she left the Jedi, walked away from the only life she’d ever known - even then, she’d known what she was supposed to do. Now she doesn’t know, and she just wants Anakin back.

Her Master had always known what to do, even when she didn’t.

But Anakin’s gone, and the closest she has is Vader, and now- Now she doesn’t even have that anymore, because she broke the bond.

Ahsoka sucks in a sharp breath, rubs at her eyes, hard. She’s not going to cry, not again.

(But it  _ hurts.) _

The door to Rex’s room opens after a little while and Rex himself walks in, looking worn and exhausted, and Ahsoka straightens up, sets her hands in her lap and sighs and says, “I’m sorry I snapped at you, Rex.”

Rex looks down at his helmet, still laying on its side on the floor where it’d fallen, then meets her eyes, offers a tiny smile. “Yeah. It’s fine.”

“So what now?” she asks, quiet, watching as he walks over and carefully picks up his helmet, setting it gently down by the rest of his armor.

Rex sighs and shifts a little, and Ahsoka tenses without meaning to. “Hondo wants you in a cell for now.”  _ What? _ No, he said- She wasn’t supposed to- “I don’t think you’re going to have to be there long, but we’re just… trying to figure out what to do next and he’s a little concerned.”

A cell.

“So I  _ am _ a prisoner,” she says, tries not to sound bitter. She should’ve known.  _ It’ll be better, _ he’d said.

At least on Nur, the cell bars hadn’t been visible.

She shakes her head a little, sighs and offers out her wrists to him so he can put binders on them - hopefully not the Force-blocking ones, she  _ hates _ those, doesn’t want them back again - she knows what’s expected of prisoners. If she’s lucky, Hondo won’t decide to try and sell her, like he thought would be smart  _ last _ time she was here as a prisoner.

Rex looks at her for a moment. He seems tired and part of her- She’s sad, for him. “I don’t know what you expect us to do here, Ahsoka,” he says, gestures at the door, ignoring her outstretched arms. “Let’s just go.”

“Maybe you should just leave me here,” she says, quietly, dropping her arms back to her sides (it doesn’t make sense, but then maybe Hondo wants to use specific cuffs, or maybe there’ll be plenty of armed guards outside, or maybe the cell itself is Force-blocking) and getting up from the bunk. She doesn’t entirely mean to say it, but- “Hondo probably wouldn’t sell me, and I’ll be out of the way of your precious rebel cell on Ryloth. And your brothers won’t have to look at me.”  _ Everyone here came for you. They wanted you back. _

He was trying to be nice, to reassure her. It was a nice thought, but she doesn’t need reassurances. She’s an Inquisitor.

And so maybe she is still Ahsoka, but it’s been a long time since she’s recognized herself in a mirror, and she’s not the Ahsoka Rex wants her to be. 

“I’m not leaving you here,” Rex says, “this is temporary.”

“You should,” she shrugs. “I make your brothers uncomfortable, I’m a security risk, and I’m not the Ahsoka you thought you were rescuing. It’d be the smart thing to do. Besides, you’ll never be able to trust that anything’s safe when I’m around.”

“I need you to stop trying to talk me into that because it’s not going to happen,” Rex says, with emphasis. “Can you just come with me, please?”

His voice cracks, just a tiny bit, and something small inside Ahsoka  _ flinches. _

She swallows, can’t quite manage to say anything, just nods and follows behind him out of the room, down the ramp and onto the planet’s surface. A light breeze stirs her cape, makes it flutter around her ankles, and she keeps her eyes trained just below eye level for anyone walking towards her, something practiced that lets her see where she’s going without making eye contact with anyone.

Rex’s brothers are waiting outside the ship, but she doesn’t look at them as they fall in step around her, no matter how… familiar it feels, having Jesse and Cody at her back.

Before, they would’ve only shot her if Vader or Sidious ordered it. Now… she doesn’t have that insurance. Unless she behaves.

(Maybe not even then. They must hate her, for not getting them out sooner. Even though she never called them by number.)

There aren’t many of Hondo’s pirates around as she’s escorted inside the compound, but most of them stare openly at her as she’s led by. She doesn’t blame them - they’ve probably never seen an Inquisitor up close before.

She could kill them with a thought and a gesture. But she’d be killed before she had the time to make the Force choke last.

“Hello, little Inquisitor!” Hondo says, mock cheerful, when she’s finally brought to a stop in front of the cell she assumes will be hers: a decent size, with a small modicum of privacy, an actual cot inside and a datapad sitting on a small table that she’s sure is heavily monitored and restricted. “You look very scary in black and red, excellent taste.”

Ahsoka doesn’t respond to him, just nods in his direction, because it’s polite and because she  _ did _ like him (mostly), before he kidnapped her. Bly nudges her forward and she sighs and steps inside the cell, watches the red ray shields warp into existence, sealing her inside.

She can still feel the Force. That’s a point in her favor, at least. 

There’s a long minute of quiet.

Then Hondo says something about ships not robbing themselves and waltzes off, and she can hear a couple pairs of boots following him, and she can’t help slumping a little.

A prisoner. This time, without any of the freedom she’d had before. 

Ahsoka pulls off her gloves, methodically sets them on the small table, detaches her cape from her shoulders and drapes it over her arms, stares at it, then presses her face into the fabric and takes a deep, shaky breath. She can endure this, she thinks, even when a couple tears force their way out of her eyes to trickle down into the fabric. She  _ can. _

Can she?

~~~

Rex is the last one to leave the small prison block of Hondo’s base, when Ahsoka won’t look at any of them and buries her face in her arms. He’s not surprised. She’s shut down, some, and he supposes he can’t blame her.

To his surprise, when he leaves the prison block, Hondo has fallen behind his brothers and is waiting for him, and promptly claps him on the shoulder. “You don’t look so good,” he says, teasing, although Rex knows he’s not happy himself.

“Yeah.” Rex sighs, shrugs. “I need a drink.”

Hondo considers him, then smiles a little and gestures. “You’ve come to the right place.”

The main room of Hondo’s base is a bar, which Rex thinks is damned appropriate. He hasn’t been here before, he and Hondo have only ever run into each other elsewhere, so Hondo explains to him that when his last base had been destroyed, he decided to build a new one and take it as an opportunity. “It’s smaller, you know,” he says, as they approach the bar counter, “but it’s just as good. I still get plenty of business.”

They sit down, and Hondo orders rum for himself, then stops Rex from getting anything and says, “I have a better idea for you,” and leans over, dramatically, to whisper to the bartending pirate, much to Rex’s annoyance. Then, he turns back to Rex and sighs, leaning one arm on the bar. “So,” he says, “what exactly happened to her, hm?” He grins, although the expression wouldn’t fool anyone, Rex thinks. “She didn’t use to be so quiet.”

Rex swallows and rubs a hand over his face. “It’s complicated, Hondo. I guess Vader happened. She’s been stuck with him for two years.”

“I still don’t understand that,” Hondo sighs. “And I think asking Kenobi is a lost cause. Or at least, a bad idea.” He glances to his right, across the room, and Rex follows his gaze to Obi-Wan, who’s seated at a table with the  _ vode,  _ now.

“Yeah.” Rex sighs. “Maybe so. I’ll let you know if I ever figure it out.”

“Ah, excellent.”

The bartender comes back over with a mug of steaming liquid, which he sets in front of Rex - it looks like caf, so he snorts and takes a tentative sip. It’s sweet, though, chocolatey, and Rex raises an eyebrow at Hondo. “When I said I needed a drink this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

“Yes, yes, I know. But I thought it would help. It’s good, I got it from…” Hondo considers. “Not a friend, exactly. Maybe a best friend. I don’t know, we’ll see.” He shakes his head, gives Rex a small smile. “There are times I recommend getting very very drunk and seeing whether it helps. I think you’d better not, though. I think your friends would worry.”

Rex sighs, shakes his head and drinks more of the chocolate, which  _ is  _ good despite the disappointing lack of alcohol. “You’re not my babysitter, Hondo.”

Hondo made a considering sound. “No, but I’m a friend of your, ah, father, and besides that I think you’re the only one here that Ahsoka Tano listens to. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

Rex says nothing.

Hondo sighs, pats him on the shoulder. “Look, Commander Rex, you know I like all of you. Even your very uptight brother over there,” and he gestures towards Obi-Wan and his  _ vode  _ again. “So I’m trying to help. I’ll leave all of you and her alone, if that’ll be better. Pirate’s honor.” (Not strictly reassuring, that.)

Rex chuckles a little, tired, and rubs his forehead. “I don’t even know,” he says. “I don’t have a fekking clue  _ what  _ would be better at this point.”

“Hmm.” Hondo nods. “More hot chocolate and then a nap for you, I think, I have some rooms for you and your friends. And company, if you want it, although I’m guessing no.” He pats Rex’s shoulder again, gets up, and waves over the bartender to fill up Rex’s cup again. Then he saunters off towards Obi-Wan.

Rather amusingly, as soon as he sits down by the Jedi, Rex sees Cody get up and come over towards Rex.

Of course he does. He’s never been a fan of Hondo Ohnaka, Rex remembers, and besides that, he’s almost irritatingly familiar with Rex’s moods. Really, though, Rex doesn’t totally want to be alone, so when Cody sits down next to him with a heavy sigh, Rex forces a smile.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.” Cody nods at him. “We shouldn’t leave Tano in that cell very long.”

“I know.” Rex sighs, rubs a hand over his face. “Pretty sure she thinks someone’s about to shoot her.”

Cody raps his knuckles on the bar. “I shouldn't be surprised you noticed. I don’t think there was a better way to do this, though.”

“How should I kriffing know?” Rex runs a hand over his hair, gestures loosely back the way they came. “I’m not even sure I did right getting her off Nur, how kriffed up is that? I know she needed to get out of there, hells, I know she  _ wanted  _ to at least at some point, I just… Shit, Codes, I’m making all these decisions to try to help when she barely wants me to and I guess- I don’t know where to go from here.”

Cody frowns, thoughtfully, and is quiet a moment except to call over the bartender and order a drink of his own. Then he rubs his hand over his jawline and blows out a tired breath. “I don’t know either,” he says, wryly. “I guess I’ve just been hoping you were right and this’d work out. Maybe we give it enough time here, we’ll get some ideas from her. I do know, though, Rex, it wouldn’t have been right to leave her there.” He looks briefly distant, takes a deep breath. “I don’t think… She doesn’t really want to go back, either, Rex. At least, I’d be real damn shocked if she did.”

Rex looks down. “I know,” he says, heavily. “But it feels wrong and- I think I keep making her scared of me and I can’t stand it.”

Cody reaches over and puts a hand on his shoulder, quiet. “It’ll probably get better,” he says. “I hope. I think… I’m pretty sure she’s not really scared of  _ you,  _ Rex.”

“Yeah. Well.” Rex shrugs. “It doesn’t make much of a difference. I’m trying to help and I think I’m kinda…” He snorts, sips more of his drink. “Kinda kriffing it up.”

Cody squeezes his shoulder. “You’re not kriffing it up,” he says, quietly. It’s hard to believe him, even though Rex knows Cody doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean. “This is just gonna be a bitch to deal with, for a while.” He grimaces, smiles. “The situation, not Ahsoka.”

“Shut up,” Rex grumbles, but the comment gets him to smile just a little. “I’m gonna go figure out where my room is.”

Cody chuckles and sits back, nodding. “I’ll send Jesse after you,” he says. “I think he shouldn’t room alone.”

Rex knows that Cody is also saying that  _ he  _ shouldn’t room alone, which should offend him but doesn’t, because it’s probably true. He nods, lifts his drink in a small toast, and gets up to leave.

This’ll get better with time. It has to. He’ll just keep being there for Ahsoka until they sort this out or she pushes him away, whichever thing happens first. But he really hopes it’ll get better. Because he’s not sure what he’ll do if it doesn’t.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Here's a new chapter. Hope you enjoy :)

Ahsoka stops talking.

It’s not really a conscious choice - she’s alone most of the time, except for some of Hondo’s Weequay, who walk the halls on patrols and bring her meals. Rex comes by too, a couple times a day, to check if she needs anything, but she always tells him she doesn’t.

She’s a prisoner. If she starts asking for too much, then they’ll think about her too much, and she doesn’t want to be hurt anymore. It’s better to be left alone in this cell - because no matter how nice it is, it’s still a cell - and to be safe than to risk being hurt again. She can’t.

(She doesn’t want to be alone.)

She’s looked a little at the datapad and personal holoprojector she’s been given; the datapad is loaded with holonovels and fiction vids and shows, all of which she can watch via the projector, if she wants, and there’s limited access to the ‘net, letting her scroll through the recent news (all Imperial propaganda, but she’s able to pick out the lies from the truth, at least) and a few sites, some mindless games, but nothing that lets her connect with another person.

It’s clearly meant to give her something to do, to keep her busy, but nothing’s really interesting, now. It’s easier to just slip into the currents of the Force and pass hours that way, or sleep and find something like peace in her dreams (though her nightmares are bad enough that sleeping can be dangerous).

Still, late one night, she finds she has access to a bootleg copy of “Hero With No Fear”, that trashy old holodrama that followed Anakin - it’s been outlawed by the Empire for portraying Jedi in a positive light, but it’d been such a hit during the war she’s not surprised there’s still copies available. She watches a couple of the episodes and even though they’re horribly inaccurate, all she can think about is the  _ real _ versions of those events, of Anakin grinning proudly at her and hugging her after a successful battle, of sharing a shy, warm smile with Rex, and-

She throws the projector across the room, against the ray shield, where it clatters to the ground, and she leaves it there while she buries her face in her hands and cries.

It’s been long enough she should- be  _ past this, _ but she  _ misses _ those days, the easy camaraderie and lack of fear and the way she never felt alone. It wasn’t all good, she  _ knows _ that, remembers Mortis and Umbara and Zygerria and Mon Cala, but she’d go through all of it again just to feel Anakin hug her one more time.

On the third day, the tooka falls out of the ventilation shaft.

It’s grey-brown and scrawny, but it’s soft and when Ahsoka offers it a little bit of her lunch it eats the food and then starts purring, curling up on the cot next to her, brushing against her leg.

“Hey, you,” she says, low, and it meows at her, blinks, and settles in to sleep.

Well.

The tooka’s still there by the time Hondo’s men bring her dinner, and she tentatively asks for a dish to fill with water for it; she’s given a couple strange looks, but neither of the guards say anything, and they don’t call for any of the clones, and one of them leaves and comes back with a small bowl, so she supposes that’s a good thing. Not asking for too much, then.

There’s extra food with her breakfast, some kind of meat that she offers the tooka, which has made no attempt to escape the cell and in fact seems perfectly content to lay down on her lap or by her feet for long stretches of time. 

In some strange way, it helps her feel less alone.

The next time Rex comes by, he looks at the tooka and smiles, amused, and Ahsoka finds herself tugging the tooka into her arms, nearly defensive of it for some strange reason. “It just got stuck in here,” she tells him, “came in through the vents.”

Rex chuckles, crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the wall outside the ray shields. “Does it wanna leave?”

“No,” she responds, maybe a little too quick, forces herself to relax, because if Rex wants the tooka to be gone, then it doesn’t matter. Besides, it’s a  _ tooka, _ it doesn’t matter if it stays here or leaves anyway. “It just lays here and sleeps a lot.”

“Does it have a name yet?”

“I can’t exactly ask it,” Ahsoka says, and as though the tooka’s taking offense to that it meows at her, squirming until she strokes its ears. Then it settles, purring, and she can’t help a tiny smile, because the thing is cute.

The look on Rex’s face makes absolutely no sense, because it’s the look Ahsoka remembers from the times she or Anakin or Obi-Wan did something with the Force he’d never seen before. “Is that… something you could do?” He sounds  _ curious, _ like he’s forgotten she’s his prisoner and also an Inquisitor who should’ve killed him and didn’t.

(Couldn’t. On second thought, maybe that’s why he’s talking to her like this, because there’s nothing she could do to him.)

“No,” Ahsoka says, shakes her head. “Not really, that’s not how animal friendship works.” She’s talking too much, she knows, but when Rex looks like that she can almost imagine that things are back the way they were, and it- She misses him, in a way. And she doesn’t want to be alone.

Rex grimaces, says, “I knew that.” She’s pretty sure he’s banthashitting her, but alright. “So what will you name it?”

She stops, for a minute, then says, “It’s not mine, it just came in through the vents.” She doesn’t just-  _ have  _ stuff, especially not animals, and especially not when she’s a prisoner, and besides, this way, nothing can be used against her. She knows how this works, it’s just a surprise they haven’t done anything yet. 

“Sure,” he says, with an amused grin, and Ahsoka frowns a little, holds on tighter to the cat, decides to ask a question that might get her in trouble, but she can’t stand just sitting here, waiting, not knowing when the blow is going to fall.

Because if Rex and the others aren’t leaving, that means they’re waiting to do something. 

“So when are you going to do- whatever you’re going to do with me?” she asks. Rex  _ immediately _ sobers and straightens, frowning, and she says, quickly, “I promise you, whatever you’re planning to do, Vader’s already- It’s already been done to me. So you might as well get it over with.”

He sighs and looks down, away from her. “I told you, we’re not going to hurt you, Ahsoka.”

“Stop  _ lying _ to me!” she snaps, jumping to her feet (upsetting the tooka, which makes it yowl and try to thread its way between her ankles) and storming over to the ray shield. “You told me it’d be  _ better _ but you just made me a prisoner again, and at least with Vader I wasn’t  _ in a cell _ and I had some freedom, as long as I did what I was supposed to. How is this  _ better? _ You  _ promised, _ Rex.”

She has to abruptly turn away from him to hide the fact that there’s tears threatening to spill onto her cheeks, wraps her arms around herself and looks at her boots, shaking her head a little. It shouldn’t  _ matter, _ she should know better than to listen to promises anymore, but-

It shouldn’t matter. But it does, and it  _ hurts. _

~~~

Rex stares at Ahsoka’s back, for a moment, swallowing hard, then takes a step back and rubs a hand over his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says, finding it hard to force the words out. “I mean it that nobody’s gonna hurt you, though.” He shakes his head. He almost wants to just go open the cell, tell her she can just go, because clearly she hates this. And she’s right, he did promise.

He scrubs his hand over his face again and sighs, turns to go. He can hear her breath hitching a little - she’s crying. He hesitates, then starts back down the hall.

“You said you wouldn’t leave me,” Ahsoka says, very quietly, and Rex stops.

He swallows, hard, not sure what he’s supposed to say and not sure he could talk if he wanted to. He’s almost angry when tears start pricking at his eyes, and determinedly tries to wipe them away, shakes his head a little. “I don’t  _ want to,”  _ he says, feeling like everything’s falling apart.

“Then why are you?” Ahsoka asks, hoarse.

Rex turns on his heel. “I’m  _ not,”  _ he says, his voice breaking. “I’m trying to-” He cuts himself off, shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Never mind.”

Ahsoka sniffs a bit, swiping at her eyes. “You  _ are,”  _ she says, “you keep leaving me alone and I’m a  _ prisoner,  _ I don’t know what you’re going to do with me and I’m  _ scared  _ and I thought I could trust you but you act like-” She stops, and Rex swallows and shakes his head and looks down. She’s crying harder, then adds, quietly, “I wanted to stay with you.”

Rex tries to get his emotions back under control, although he thinks he’s lost his chance to. He can’t do this, he should just go find Cody. “Well,” he says, hoarse, “I want- I want to be here. And I was hoping I could help you, and we could-” He stops, swallows, wanting to scold himself for being selfish. “But if you’d rather- go, I’d understand, and I have the door code, so you just- have to ask. Because I never wanted to scare you.”

Ahsoka swallows, meeting his eyes, and he wants to look away. “I wanted to stay with you, but-” She hesitates. “Not as your prisoner, as your-” Her eyes drop away from his and she seems to struggle for words, then she slumps, looking up again. “Do you want me to- go? I have nowhere else to go.”

“No.” Rex shakes his head, passes his hands roughly over his face. “I thought… you’d prefer that, maybe.”

Ahsoka is quiet, and doesn’t move, for a moment. Then she takes a few steps forward and puts her palm against the cell’s ray shield. There’s something that strikes him so familiar about the gesture that it  _ hurts,  _ although he’s not sure why.

He’s so  _ exhausted. _

Rex rolls his shoulders back and pulls his hands out of his pockets, tries to stop crying and calm down, and crosses the hallway to her, although he finds he can’t quite bring himself to do more than that, for a minute. He looks into her eyes, down at her hand, swipes at his eyes again. He  _ wants  _ to either run or key open the cell and pull her into a hug and both ideas feel like monumentally bad ones. This is a good middle ground. So he tentatively flattens his palm against the ray shield on his side, his chest aching.

Ahsoka slowly leans her head against the shield, even the small sounds seeming loud to Rex ears. “I don’t want to be alone anymore,” she whispers, and  _ gods,  _ he knows how that feels.

Without really thinking about it, he’s pulled away slightly, reached over to the keypad by the cell to put in the code Hondo gave him, and the ray shields blink away. Ahsoka slightly stumbles, then straightens, looking at him like she’s not sure what to do. He takes a step back towards her, and she holds out an arm towards him like she actually wants him to come over.

Rex hesitates, then hurries the rest of the way to her, stops, lifts a hand to lightly skim his fingers over her cheek. She closes her eyes, goes still, although he doesn’t think she’s afraid.

He lets his hand fall to her shoulder, then tentatively puts his other arm around her, tugs her close. For a second he’s afraid that’s a mistake, but then both her arms go around his middle and she holds on so tight it almost hurts, tucking her face into his shoulder.

Rex closes his eyes again, slumps, feeling as if he can’t hold himself up at all. He thinks some people would say he’s being stupid, with all this, but he’s too tired to care. Even if it goes south again. It’s just… Right now it’s nice. And nice to think she doesn’t want to leave.

He holds on for a while, then straightens a bit and steps back, rubbing his face. He’s not really sure what to do, so when his eyes fall on Ahsoka’s new tooka friend, sleeping comfortably on her bunk, he gestures to it. “You sure you don’t wanna name it?”

Ahsoka hesitates. “Maybe I’ll name it…” She glances over at the cat, then smiles a little. “I don’t know, Fives?”

Funny how that hurts and makes him laugh a little at the same time. Rex shakes his head. “Yeah. Seems about right.” He thinks Fives might appreciate the gesture, although he doesn’t think Fives ever did like animals much.

Ahsoka’s smile gets a little surer. “He always said we had to name somebody after him, remember?” Rex snorts. “I thought it’d be- Anakin’s kid he’d insist on.”

“Gods, he would.” Rex shakes his head, amused. “He’d probably be a real pain in the ass about it, too. Tell the General he owed it to him for something stupid.” He swallows a little, huffs a tired laugh. “A cat’s a much better idea.”

“He’d be all proud until I told him I could see the resemblance,” Ahsoka says, “and when he’d ask what it was, I’d say it’s the ears.”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with our ears,” Rex grumbles. “Watch it.”

Ahsoka smiles at him, hesitantly, but it’s a real, honest-to-gods smile that makes her look warm, and reaches up to tug slightly on his ear, which makes him snort and nudge her arm away, an old familiar amusement making it feel easier to breathe. “I don’t know, ears are really strange looking,” Ahsoka informs him. “I’m still not sure they’re  _ supposed  _ to be all ridgy like this.”

“As I always tell you, blame Jango,” Rex snorts. “Or ask someone smarter than me about it.” How many times she’d teased him or Torrent about weird quirks of Human biology that Togrutas apparently didn’t have, which was mostly amusing to Rex and very annoying to the younger  _ vode. _

Ahsoka’s smile softens, then she turns and walks over to sit down on her bed, nudging the cat out of the way a little and patting the spot on the opposite side of her.

Rex hesitates, then joins her, leaning his forearms on his knees, hands twisting together. “Rex, I…” She looks unsure of herself, then takes a deep breath. “I wanted to- apologize.”

Rex considers her. “What for?” he says, quiet.

Ahsoka glances at him, says, “For- hurting you, and for not trusting you when you’ve… always been here for me.”

“Oh.” Rex twists his fingers together more, takes a careful breath. He feels a little steadier. “Well, I- I understand, you know.”

Ahsoka sighs, and nods. “That- doesn’t mean it was okay.”

Rex isn’t sure what to say, really. He’s tired, bone-deep, so he just ends up nodding and letting his shoulder brush hers. He feels like it’s been such a long time and the quiet feels strange. Almost worse than the anger. But it’s steadying nonetheless.

~~~

Ahsoka leans against Rex’s shoulder, tired but feeling strangely… free. She’s not a prisoner, not really, not if he was- willing to let her  _ go _ (she has nowhere  _ to _ go, not anymore, not since she broke her bond with her- with her  _ former _ Master), and he’d- She’d admitted she doesn’t want to be alone, anymore, even though to be an Inquisitor  _ is _ to be alone, and he’d just- held her. “You care,” she realizes, quietly, then winces - she hadn’t meant to say that aloud.

Rex sighs. “Yeah,” he says, and Ahsoka reaches over and buries her fingers in Fives the tooka’s fur.

“I just…” She stops, shakes her head a little. “I didn’t think you still cared. About me.”

He gives her a little bit of a  _ look, _ and she nearly tenses, expecting- she’s not sure what. But all he does is rub at his face and say, “Well, I do.”

Fives purrs and Ahsoka looks away from Rex, stares down at the tooka, whose warm weight against her leg is grounding, gives her something to focus on. “The others,” she asks, changing the subject because she doesn’t really know what to do with that realization, “will they let me leave the cell? I’d like to… stay with you, if I can. I won’t  _ do _ anything, I just don’t want to be trapped in here.”

Rex hums, thoughtful, the sound nearly as reassuring as her tooka’s purr. “Well, Hondo was a little nervous, but I think it’s really mostly up to me right now. I think as long as you weren’t just wandering around his base on your own…”

She nods. “I could stay with one of your brothers during the day, like an escort, so they’d know where I was.” It’s not… the best option. But it’s better than being a prisoner, better than sitting alone on a cot and watching the galaxy pass by through the red-tinted ray shields.

“I’ll talk to Cody and Sterling, see what they think,” Rex says, after a minute, and that’s good, should be good enough, but-

Ahsoka hesitates, then says, nearly shy, “I don’t have any real clothes.”

Rex  _ laughs, _ though she doesn’t think he’s laughing at her, runs a hand through his hair and says, “Shit, sorry. I mean… Some of Hondo’s crew probably have clothes. I sure don’t.”

Ahsoka picks at the edges of her sleeves and says, “It’s hard to not think of myself as an Inquisitor when i’m wearing the uniform.”

“Well, if you want me to ask for you, I can,” he says, nodding, like he understands, and she relaxes, leans back against his shoulder.

“I’d like that,” she tells him, hesitates before reaching one hand down to tentatively thread her fingers with his. “Does this mean I don’t have to stay in here now?”

Rex squeezes her hand, lightly, sighs and says, “Yeah.” He’s being quiet and more reserved again, but that’s okay, because he’s  _ here, _ he’s not leaving her and she’s not alone now.

“Jesse and Bly didn’t think it was a good idea to let me wander around without cuffs,” she says after a minute of quiet. She can’t help wondering what someone would think, if they came by the cell right now, saw the ray shields deactivated and Rex sitting with her, but she thinks Rex probably would have that under control, if someone was upset. She hopes.

“Bly trusts my judgement,” Rex says, though he hums a little, considering, she thinks. “Jesse’s just… Jesse’s tired, and he’s anxious.” He shrugs, jostling her where she’s leaned against his side. “They’ll be fine.”

“Is Jesse angry at me? For- the orders I’ve given him?” Ahsoka doesn’t entirely want to ask, but she needs to know. 

Rex looks down and away, his face shuttering a little. “I don’t know, I don’t think so. He’s angry at  _ himself.” _

“It wasn’t his fault,” she says. “The chips… He wasn’t himself.” She wants to say she’s sorry, but she doesn’t think Rex would believe her anymore, if she did. Because they both know she’s spent the last two years ordering his brothers around, counting on the chips in their heads to keep her from being shot on sight, because if any of them had had a choice it wouldn’t have been the Jedi they would’ve killed, it would’ve been the Sith.

She can’t help wondering if Jesse and Cody, behind the chip’s forced loyalty, had  _ wanted _ to kill her, if the other men she’d commanded would’ve taken the shot if they’d had half a second’s chance.

(She can’t help wondering if they would’ve been  _ right _ to.)

“I know,” Rex says, sounds exhausted. “So does he. It doesn’t always matter, though.”

Ahsoka nods. She remembers Rex marching her out into the hangar of the  _ Resolute, _ trying to talk Jesse around, remembers how Jesse’s blasters never faltered.

Rex’s had, before he shot at her, his hands had been shaking when he told her to  _ find Fives. _ He’d been crying, then.

She doesn’t know why she’s thinking about this  _ now, _ of all times.

“Can I see him?” she asks, abruptly, straightening up and looking over at Rex. “Jesse, I mean. Would he let me? He was- my friend.”

Rex looks back at her, says, “You have to ask him. I don’t know.”

She looks down, picks up the tooka and cuddles it against her chest, shakes her head a little. “Asking him would-” She’d have to talk to him to ask him, and she doesn’t want to do that if he’s not going to say yes, it’d be… “I can’t.”

“I don’t think I should ask him for you.”

He’s probably right, but- Ahsoka shakes her head and stands up, shifting the tooka in her arms, says, “I don’t want to stay in this room. Can we- go somewhere? Anywhere?”

She wants to  _ do something, _ anything is better than being stuck in this cell for another minute longer. 

~~~

Rex hesitates briefly, at Ahsoka’s question - he doesn’t know how the others will react to her or to him allowing him out of the cell. He doesn’t want to cause unnecessary tension. But their goal had never been to keep her locked up for a long time, and she was going to have to start dealing with people at some point. It’s up to her how she wants to do that.

“Alright,” he says, gets up as well and gestures vaguely out of the cell. “We’ve either got dirt outside or a bar inside. I’ve got a room, too, but I’m sharing with Jesse.”

“Maybe we can get a drink, then go see the dirt,” Ahsoka says, lightly, scratching her cat’s ears. Then, hesitating, she added, “Will I- be staying in here most of the time, then?”

“I didn’t exactly get that far,” Rex says, grimacing. “I don’t think you and Jesse and me would make good roommates. Maybe… I’ll talk to Hondo, see if I can give you the key code. Or hells, I don’t know, maybe there’s another room he can give you.”

Rex kind of thinks Hondo is going to give him shit for all this. Assuming it doesn’t immediately go to hells.

Ahsoka shrugs, hugging her cat. “Well- I don’t really want to be alone, but it’s probably better, I guess. At least it’s not a cell.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Rex repeats.

They go to the bar and dining hall, where everyone’s too busy at first to notice them walk in. Rex sees Obi-Wan, who’s talking to Hondo, glance just briefly in their direction, though. Rex nudges Ahsoka towards the bar and sits down, ordering himself a drink. She sits down too, hugging Fives tight enough to her that the cat mewls a little bit, and asks the bartender for a drink. The pirate gives her a once-over, then shrugs and gets her a glass.

It’s noisy in the room, and although more people have been looking at Ahsoka in her wrinkled black clothes, nobody actually says anything. Rex knows it’s not the first time they’ve dealt with something crazy like this and probably won’t be the last.

“The other day Hondo had me try some kind of hot chocolate drink,” Rex says, accepting his own glass of whiskey. “It was pretty good, but I like this better.”

Ahsoka smiles, slightly, her shoulders easing some of their tension. “That sounds good, actually.”

Rex snorts. “It is, but I wanted something with alcohol and that wasn’t it.” He grimaces a bit. “There’s not enough caf around here, by the way. The options are really limited. So I guess a chocolate drink isn’t so bad.”

“Do they at least have cream and sugar for the caf?” she asks, and Rex chuckles.

“You know I’m the wrong person to ask. I’m guessing no, Sterling has been complaining about the caf constantly and I’m pretty sure his caf would usually have too much sugar in it to tell the difference.”

Ahsoka smiles a little wider, settling Fives more comfortably in her lap. The cat purrs, curls up, and stares lazily at Rex for a moment before seeming to doze off. “Then I think I’d rather have the chocolate,” Ahsoka says.

Rex laughs. “I’m not surprised.” He leans against the bar and taps the counter. “You and your sweet tooth.”

“You remember,” Ahsoka says, sounding pleased and grinning.

“Of course.” Rex shakes his head, amused. He doesn’t say that he remembers everything, more clearly than he wants to, sometimes. It really hasn’t been so long, even though it feels like it’s been forever since everything was… not alright, but better.

Ahsoka leans forward a little, a teasing light in her eyes. “There wasn’t anything sweet on Nur,” she says, almost tentatively. “I think Vader thought it’d make his Inquisitors lose their anger.”

“How did you survive two years without sugar  _ or  _ caf?” he teases, and waves over the bartender to ask for some of the hot chocolate. “We better fix that.”

Ahsoka leans forward with one hand on her cat, eyes narrowing, and, very seriously (definitely  _ too  _ seriously to actually mean it), says, “An Inquisitor survives on pure rage, Captain.”

Rex raises an eyebrow, pats her shoulder, and points at the bar where the bartender has just set down a mug full of hot chocolate. “Okay, calm down, drink your chocolate,” he says, dryly.

Ahsoka grins. “Yes, sir,” she says, teasingly, and reaches over to have a sip of the hot chocolate. Instantly her face lights up and she cups the drink in both hands like she could soak up the warmth that way. Rex smiles at her, feeling oddly fond and oddly lonely all at once.

A moment later Rex jumps when a hand lands on his shoulder and Hondo’s jovial laugh startles him out of his melancholy. “Hello!” Hondo says, excitedly, and Rex rolls his eyes and turns to face the pirate.

Ahsoka, just as startled as he is, tenses and puts her mug down, arms going around her cat. “Hello, Hondo,” she says, warily.

Hondo drags a bar stool out from the counter and sits down, crossing his arms. “I haven’t seen you in  _ ages,”  _ he pronounces, eyeing her up and down. “You’re taller. And I don’t remember these-” he gestures loosely, “-yellow eyes, either.”

Rex sighs and shakes his head. Leave it to Hondo to forget tact in his other coat.

~~~

For a minute, Ahsoka had almost managed to forget where she is, what she is, that things aren’t the same as they used to be - sitting and talking with Rex,  _ joking _ with him, it’d been so similar to before that she’d- nearly forgotten the two of them aren’t alone. 

“My montrals and lekku are still growing,” she says, after a minute, “and the yellow eyes come from-” She stops. “They’re a side effect.”

“Hmm,” Hondo says, studies her a little more closely, and she presses her fingers into Fives’ fur. “I don’t approve of this intimidating look on you, Ahsoka Tano,” he declares, as though his opinion is the only one that matters. Given the fact that this is  _ Hondo, _ really, she’s not surprised. “Do you remember those horned  _ crazies _ who tried to kill me? Of course you do,” and he waves one hand. “They had the same eyes.”

Ahsoka stares at him, for a minute, then leans over to Rex and whispers, “Who is he talking about?”

“Maul,” Rex says in a similarly low voice, and Ahsoka straightens, indignation overcoming some of her nervousness.

_ “Maul?” _ she says. “I kicked his  _ ass _ on Mandalore, he’s less than half a Sith Lord,” literally, in fact, “you can’t compare me to him. It’s  _ insulting.” _

Hondo laughs, radiating amusement, but when she looks over at Rex he’s giving her a small, sideways look, one eyebrow raised.

She flushes and looks down, shrugs a shoulder and says, “Sorry. But I’m not like Maul.”

“No, definitely not,” Hondo agrees. “I think you’re crazier.”

“Maybe a little,” she sighs, remembering how  _ certain _ she’d been Maul was lying about Anakin’s role in Sidious’ plans. “You… aren’t going to ask why I’m out here?”

Hondo briefly shoots Rex a look, something more firm and pointed than usual, then says, “Because you need a drink, of course,” and waves the bartender over to pour another round.

Ahsoka glances at the blue, slightly glowing drink placed in front of her, then reaches back for her mug of chocolate and says, “I think I’d rather stick with this for now.” She takes a small sip of the hot chocolate, sighs and twists the mug around and around between her fingers, the warmth nearly burning them.

“How are you, little not-Jedi?” Hondo asks, waving a hand and taking the drink he’d gotten for her, gulping it down in a couple swallows and setting the glass down firmly on the bar.

She eyes him for a moment. “How do you think?” She’s half-Sith and has been a prisoner for the last few days and her head still aches from breaking the bond with Vader, not that Hondo would know about that last part. Her tooka meows and nudges her hand, and Ahsoka can’t help a tiny smile down at it, scratches its ears. “I’m better than I was, I think,” and she sighs, takes another drink of her hot chocolate.

“Well, if you need anything,” Hondo says, “you just ask me. Or,” and his gaze turns thoughtful, “maybe just ask Rex.” And he stands up and saunters away, coat swishing behind him, over to join Obi-Wan and Cody at a table, cheerful.

Ahsoka blinks, looks over at Rex then back down at her mug, nearly empty already, somehow. “That was- strange,” she finally says.

“Isn’t he always?” Rex chuckles to himself, takes a drink and leans back on his stool, elbows on the counter, looking far more relaxed than she feels. And he’s not  _ wrong, _ exactly, Hondo has always been… different, with motives she can’t really understand, and so alright, maybe it wasn’t any stranger than usual.

But it almost seems like Hondo  _ cares _ about her.

The next few days are strange too, in a way - Ahsoka stays in her cell at night, but Hondo’s men bring in a curtain to cover the door with, to give her some privacy, and the shields aren’t locked. She spends most of the days with Rex, wandering the compound, sometimes hanging back while he talks to his brothers. Obi-Wan tries to talk to her, once, and it’s- awkward, but better than she’d expected it to be. There’s so much he wants to say, she can  _ tell, _ but-

She’s not really ready for that, not yet, and she thinks he knows, because he keeps to casual conversation - how she’s feeling, if there’s anything she needs, helping her find new clothes to wear, once. She appreciates that he still seems to know what she really needs, just like he’d always used to in the past.

Everyone’s been preparing for something - for Vader, probably. She knows it’s likely Vader will try to find her, to take her back.

She’s not sure she wants him to, anymore.

Ahsoka knows she can’t fight Vader, because even after everything, he’s still her  _ Master, _ and how can she forget that?

It’s a week after her conversation with Rex, after he let her out of her cell, that something  _ happens. _

Ahsoka walks around a corner in the compound to see Jesse talking to Rex and Cody, and the look on his face is something- she’s never seen before. “We have to go get him, Rex,” he’s saying, and Ahsoka can’t help stepping up closer to them.

“Who?” she asks, even though it makes Jesse spin around, and he seems apprehensive at best. It’s Cody who finally looks at her, more serious than she’s seen him since they came to Florrum, and she almost can’t believe what he says.

“Kix.”


End file.
